Transplant
by sydneyeliza
Summary: Will she live? Or will she die? That decision rests in Shinji's hands...but there is one more thing that does not.
1. diagnosis

Stupidly, I forgot to add a disclaimer here when I posted this fic yesterday. Here it is:

Disclaimer: I don't own Evangelion, but I do think that baby Shinji is very cute!

= = = = = = =

_She paid close attention to the panels, each focused on a live image of a certain Eva pilot, labeled with their respective names and units._

"_How are you feeling?"_

_Rei: "Something's different."_

"_Yeah, it's different from usual." –Shinji._

"_It's a different sensation. The right arm is clear, and all the rest is dull," Asuka, in an odd tone—irritation, or wonder?_

_Eva 00's fingers clench._

"_Data collection's going well." _

_Maya's reflection shines brightly on the glass panel._

_No..._

..._dilemma?_

_Ritsuko again. "You can guess the personality of the person who made it, can't you?"_

"_What are you saying? You made it, didn't you?"_

"_You don't know _anything_."_

_Vexation. Apparent annoyance. "Well, unlike me, you don't talk about yourself."_

_Pause._

"_Will it affect our test?" _

"_At this moment, no."_

"_Then continue."_

_Silence._

"_Contamination alert has been issued in Sigma Unit, floor A."_

"_87th protein wall has degraded. It's heating up!"_

"_There's a problem in #6 pipe!"_

"_The corroded area's expanding rapidly!"_

"_Abort the experiment! Disconnect the No.6 pipe! Set the laser at max power, and fire as soon as it reaches there."_

"_It's coming!"_

_Silence._

_Broken by Rei's scream._

"_What about Rei?!"_

"_She's alive."_

_Relief._

"_Fire the lasers, quickly."_

"_AT field!"_

_Her own voice, shouting._

"_Impossible!"_

"_An angel...?! You let it get in?!"_

_Shock._

"_I'm sorry. We'll isolate the box! All personnel, evacuate!"_

_Cracking glass._

"_What're you doing? Move it!"_

"_Isolating the Sigma Unit from floor E."_

_Rushing water._

"_The sub-computer's been hacked! Intruder, unknown!"_

"_Cut the main cable; fire the laser!"_

"_The AT field was developed, no effect!"_

_Blended voices. _

"_Self destruction was proposed by the artificial intelligence, Melchior."_

_Disbelief._

= = = = = = =

Misato woke in a cold sweat, tossing her blankets off of her carelessly. As if it wasn't bad enough to have lived through that horror once. She put her feet to the floor and gingerly stood up, grumbling at the pain in her joints.

_Damn, I'm not THAT old yet!_

Misato swayed and grabbed the table to secure her balance, then went to go get a beer. She sat alone in the kitchen with the room only half-lit, her head drooping on her shoulders and occasionally rising to take another sip of beer. The beverage did little to liven her up; if anything, it seemed to be doing the opposite. Misato groaned and rested her head and arms on the wooden table. Something soft brushed against her legs.

"Hi, Pen-pen," she mumbled, her eyes closed, as she reached down to stroke the bird.

"Wark," he replied by way of greeting, nibbling gently on her index finger.

It took the purple-haired woman much more effort than usual to raise her head the necessary number of degrees so that she could view the clock over her never-used oven. It was 3:15.

"I should really go back to bed," she mumbled, "be awake tomorrow."

Nevertheless, she did not move until Pen-pen pecked her thigh lightly.

Misato tiptoed past Shinji and Asuka's rooms, listening carefully to make sure that neither had been disturbed by her midnight escapade. Then she crept into bed and closed the door behind her.

It was much too hot to sleep with the blanket covering her. Misato kicked them to the floor and fell fast asleep.

= = = = = = =

"Good morning, Asuka."

"Guten Morgen." The redhead yawned. "Where's Misato?"

Shinji turned slightly from the breakfast he was cooking. "Still asleep, I think," he said quietly.

"I see." Asuka slid into her usual seat at the table and stared in distaste at the opened beer can. When Shinji reappeared a moment later with two plates of steaming food, the redhead was wearing a smug grin.

"Digging into Misato's beer stores, have you?" she chided roughly, as he slid her plate to her across the smooth wooden surface. "Ouch, that's hot—_don't _do that, baka!"

"Sorry," Shinji apologized quickly, lowering his head. Unfortunately his gaze landed on the beer can.

_Since when does Asuka drink beer?_

Deciding that it would be wisest not to question her about it, Shinji picked up the can and made to throw it away.

"Unbelievable." Shinji turned, the can still in his hand. The German was leaning back in her chair, eyes closed, a piece of vegetable omelette speared on the tip of her fork. "Even _I_ wouldn't have expected this from you, Third Child."

Shinji's stomach did a flop as he recalled her earlier words—words he had not taken into consideration since the girl had been yelling at him for burning her hand.

"I—I haven't done anything!" he protested, in futile defense.

"You were the first one up this morning," Asuka pointed out, "and I _know_ the table was clean after dinner last night." She placed the morsel in her mouth and chewed slowly, savoring the taste.

Knowing it was useless, Shinji made no argument but instead sat down to his own breakfast. The door slid open behind them and Misato appeared, looking haggard and worn—and she was most certainly not appropriately dressed.

"Ohayoo." She stumbled to the stove and stabbed a fork into the remaining omelette, not noticing the shocked stares of the Second and Third Children.

"Misato," Asuka asked, no longer able to contain her curiosity, "what happened to your legs?!"

Confused, Misato glanced down.

_When did it get this bad!?_

She'd first noticed the bruise on her left hip several weeks ago, but couldn't remember when she had gotten it. She had shrugged it off; bruises had come and gone without her knowledge in the past. But this one hadn't healed itself; if anything, it had worsened. It had spread.

And now it was halfway down her thigh. Both thighs, actually.

"Kaji didn't...?" Asuka prompted, letting the question hang in the air.

Misato stiffened. "If you're asking if he hit me, the answer is no," she responded crossly. Shinji glanced worriedly at his guardian as she sat down and began to eat rather forcedly. He had the impression that she had no appetite whatsoever.

_I'll ask Ritsuko about it later_, she thought. _I need a beer._

Misato dropped her fork limply, letting it clatter on her plate. "Asuka... get me a beer, will you?"

Asuka took great pleasure in refusing. Without a word Shinji got up and fetched it for her.

"Thanks, Shin-chan..."

"Always acting the hero," Asuka snorted. "_Whatever_ would we do without the valiant Third Child?"

Misato popped open the beer and downed half of it in one gulp.

"All right." She slammed the empty can on the wooden table with as much force as she could muster, emitting a deeply satisfied sigh. "Ready to go?"

"Been up and waiting," Asuka announced.

"Misato-san," Shinji began hesitantly, "shouldn't you put on some clothes first?"

Misato glanced down and was met with the angry glare of her bruises. _I'll have to wear long pants, if I don't want everyone demanding to know what happened to me._ She glanced uncomfortably at the window. The thermometer informed her that it was no less than ninety-seven degrees outside.

"Right," she replied in a strained voice, "go get in the car, and I'll be out in a minute."

= = = = = = =

Sorhyu Asuka Langley was not happy. It did not please the Second Child to be stuck within twelve feet of the Third, unless her fist was making contact with his face. She sighed and crossed her arms again, this time placing her left arm on top of her right. This new arrangement kept her temporarily pacified. If Misato didn't show up soon, she might just go home and refuse to go to Nerv for the day.

_Why the hell does Ritsuko need a new synchronization test every other day? _she fumed. _Unbelievable._

Behind her, Shinji murmured quietly, "I wonder what's taking her so long..."

Asuka closed her eyes in annoyance. "Then why don't you go find out, Third Child?"

To her surprise, he obeyed.

The door slammed behind him, leaving the redhead alone in Misato's old blue car. Asuka was cramped; there wasn't exactly much legroom. She had always had long legs—and she was proud of them, except on occasions such as these. The heat only added to her discomfort. Frustrated, Asuka rolled it down manually—if Tokyo-3 was so technologically advanced, why didn't they have those electricity-controlled car windows where all you had to do was press a button?

"Summer," she muttered. "It was never this hot in Germany... damn!"

The Second Child leaned out the window with a bored expression on her face, balancing her chin on the edge of the glass.

"He probably got lost on his way up, that baka," she muttered.

= = = = = = =

Shinji, however, was anything but lost. He had made his way up to the apartment quickly, basking in the cool air of the apartment building. In fact, perhaps it was a good thing that he had been sent to fetch Misato after all.

That happy mood quickly dissipated when no one answered, regardless of how much damage he did to the door.

"Misato-san!" he yelled.

After the fifteenth shout, Shinji had lifted his fist to land yet another thump on the door when it suddenly slid open, forcing him to grab the doorframe to keep from falling over.

"Sorry," Misato muttered. "Come on, let's go."

Shinji watched his guardian and commanding officer carefully as they stepped into the elevator. She looked exhausted, more than he had ever seen before. Her hair hung limply around her shoulders, not bouncy as it usually was. She wore the usual red jacket—and long jeans. A hot breeze enveloped them as they stepped out onto the marble tiles of the first floor.

"Damn, where did that girl go?"

Shinji followed her gaze to her car and noticed that it was indeed empty. One glance at Misato told him that she'd better sit down, so he offered to look for Asuka while she got the car started up. The Major quickly agreed. It didn't take the Third Child long to locate the Second.

= = = = = = =

Asuka was standing only a short distance away. Her fingers were outstretched, their tips barely brushing the silky petals of the cherry blossoms.

"Deutschland..." she whispered, remember. "Mama..."

_There was a tree like this in Germany, outside our house, and every spring it would bloom... Kaji told me it was from Japan. The one connection I had with Mama after she died. _

A twig cracked behind her, followed by the last voice she wanted to hear.

"Asuka?"

The redhead whirled around, her soft musings dissolving in an instant. "Third Child! Don't spy on me!"

The Third tried frantically—futilely—to defend himself against her accusations, but all was to no avail; five minutes later, a fiery Asuka and a rather bruised Shinji (though it was nothing compared to what his commander bore) made their way back to the car.

"Took you long enough," Asuka snapped at the driver, as she got into the passenger's seat.

Misato made no reply.

Several miles down the road Asuka asked, "Can't you turn on the air conditioner?"

"There isn't one in this car." Misato's reply was clipped and curt.

"Unbelievable." Asuka shook her head. "You work for the most technologically advanced organization in the world—and your car doesn't have _air conditioning_."

Misato did not reply.

Her hopes of being able to speak to Ritsuko alone were quickly dashed as Maya ran outside to meet her, clipboard in hand. "Major, Sempai is waiting to start the test."

"I see," Misato replied dryly.

Asuka thrust open the door, almost knocking Maya over. "Hurry up, baka! You're so slow!"

"Yes..." Shinji followed. Misato stretched, then slammed her door and slowly made her way around the car. Maya led the two children inside, Asuka striding in the lead.

"I'm here."

Ritsuko glanced up over the screen of her laptop. "You're late."

Asuka growled. "It's all Misato's fault! That—"

"Maya," Ritsuko interrupted, not looking up, "where _is_ the Major?"

Misato answered that for her, pushing open the heavy wooden door with obvious effort. She welcomed the cool air and stepped willingly into the dark facilities of Nerv, away from the blistering heat.

Ritsuko nodded and directed the pilots to the changing rooms.

Misato sank into a chair beside her old college friend, not caring that it belonged to Makoto. Surely he wouldn't mind. Ritsuko cast a side glance at her, then found her appearance so curious that she had to fully turn around.

"Why are you wearing long jeans? It's 97.385 degrees outside."

"I'll tell you later," the Major mumbled, well aware that Shigeru and Maya were paying close attention. She wondered where Makoto had gone.

The blonde shrugged and focused her gaze on the pane displaying the three pilots. She did, however, continue to throw concerned glances in Misato's direction. Several minutes passed before the Major drew herself to an upright position, gazing alertly at the screen.

= = = = = = =

Ritsuko was wearing the expression she usually wore only when engaged in deep thought about how to defeat the next angel when the three pilots emerged from the dressing room again. At least for now, they were safe; all three Magi supercomputers were operating properly and reporting neither errors nor blue patterns. All tests had recorded superb results; under other circumstances she might have worn an excited grin. The technicians had no data transfers to do, and were sitting idly awaiting further instructions. She was concerned only for the woman sitting next to her.

At some point she became aware that the three children were awaiting orders as well. Ritsuko turned to her favorite technician.

"Yes, Sempai?"

"I'm giving you one hour off," Ritsuko instructed, and Maya's brown eyes widened in surprise. "I want you to take Shinji, Asuka, and Rei to their respective homes, then report back to duty."

Maya's eyes were as wide as saucers, mirroring Shinji's. "What if... an angel attacks...?"

"Shigeru and Makoto can take over until you get here," Ritsuko insisted smoothly, skillfully keeping the confusion and worry out of her voice. "I know how to reach you in case of an emergency. Should anything happen, Maya, I shall expect you here before even the pilots themselves arrive."

"Yes, Sempai."

Ritsuko nodded. Of the three pilots, Shinji was most hesitant to leave; Asuka simply strode out without a backwards glance and Rei followed in her wake. The pilot of Evangelion Unit 01 hung back and cast a preoccupied glance at his guardian.

"Will she be all right?"

"Yes," the doctor replied, without hesitation.

When the boy had finally been ushered out the door, Ritsuko stood up and led Misato into a private room. She didn't want to take any chance of the conversation being recorded, as she wasn't sure what her old college friend would tell her. The doctor situated the purple-haired lady onto the bed of the small examining room and studied her. Her chin was drooping.

"Something you want to tell me, Misato?"

The purple-haired woman yawned. "I'm tired. I wish I had a beer..."

Ritsuko sighed. She strode to the closet and produced an oversized paper robe. "Change into this."

"What? No!"

The blonde glared. "You know I'm a certified doctor. And besides, you really shouldn't be embarrassed to change in front of me, given the way you dress at home with Shinji around."

Misato flushed and gave in.

Ritsuko watched her move, eyeing the bruises with growing alarm. They were a mottled purple and red and spread generously across both thighs. Misato herself admitted that they were on her hips, too. The doctor pressed down gently in the center with two fingertips and watched the Major's face carefully for any signs of discomfort.

"Does it hurt?"

She considered. "Not really."

That was the sort of comment Ritsuko hated; they didn't tell her much of anything. "You can't remember how you got it?"

"No."

Ritsuko weighed her options. There wasn't much more she could do, besides run a blood test and check for abnormalities, and order her patient to bed. Then she remembered that the Major shared an apartment with the Second Child and realized that the chances of Misato getting much extra sleep were slim.

She decided to draw two samples of blood—Misato was much more complacent with having blood drawn than undressing, surprisingly—and ordered her home to sleep.

"Do you want a ride home?"

The purple-haired Major paused at the door. "Damn it, Ritsuko, it's not like I've suddenly become an invalid or anything."

She waited for a retort, but it didn't come. Dr. Akagi held the vial up to the light and gave it a tiny shake. Misato snorted, slammed the door, and disappeared out of the depths of Nerv's many hallways.

Ritsuko watched her leave and prayed that she wouldn't drink too many beers. She lowered the vial, listening carefully for any telltale beeping from the Magi, and heard none. Nevertheless, she stored the vials away safely and returned to her post.

= = = = = = =

"So, what did she want you for?"

"To tell me to sleep." Misato was no more pleased than Ritsuko or Asuka, and it showed. "I _hate_ the heat..."

Asuka tossed her hair. "That would be _your _fault for the long jeans."

Misato briefly considered slapping her, imagined the scolding she would get from the Commander for lowering the girl's synchronization ratio, and instead went into her room. Much to her chagrin, Asuka followed.

"So, what's wrong with you?"

Misato spread herself out on the bed and stretched. Her hands pressed flat against the wall and her toes gripped the foot of her bed. Several moments passed before she could be certain of speaking in a cool voice.

"I'm tired, Asuka. Will you please leave?"

"Leave?" The Second Child did just the opposite and sat down on the edge of Misato's bed, crossing her arms and legs. "So what deadly disease have you got? Or is it something you're embarrassed to tell? Or—"

"_Asuka_," Misato groaned, dragging out both a's.

"Or—" Asuka gave the bed just a bit of a naughty bounce, "you caught an STD from Kaji!"

"DAMN YOU!"

The Katsuragi apartment exploded. Misato was on her feet in a flash, so threateningly that Asuka actually jumped backwards. The Major was infuriated, sputtering incomprehensible words, too angry to form proper sentences.

"I—have—NOT—gotten—an STD—from—Kaji," she ground out furiously. It took Asuka a moment to regain her composure.

"Whatever." She shrugged and left, sliding the door shut behind her. It promptly hit the other wall and slid open again. Since the redhead was long gone, Misato made her way slowly to the door and shut it properly, locking it for good measure.

_Damn you, Asuka_.

No more thoughts fluttered through her head as she sank like a stone into the soft blankets and fell fast asleep.

= = = = = = =

Shinji poured the beer for Pen-pen.

After all those years the penguin still had to wrestle with the aluminum can for several minutes (generally involving the loss of many feathers, which he disliked greatly) before he could get it open, and some of it would usually spill on what feathers he had left. Pen-pen didn't mind the taste of beer, but alcohol-stiffened feathers did not bode well with him. Life had improved greatly since Shinji had moved in.

The door slid open to reveal Asuka, dressed neatly in her school uniform. Had Shinji not known her, his first impression would have been of a sweet little schoolgirl—until her expression changed to a scowl. He served her breakfast quickly and escaped without injury back to the kitchen, where he finished up her lunch.

"Where's Misato?" he asked cautiously.

"Not up yet, probably still asleep, dreaming of Kaji." She accented the last three words with an angry twist that clearly showed her jealousy. Wisely, Shinji chose not to comment. They finished up their breakfast in silence, interrupted periodically by Pen-pen slurping up his beer.

Asuka picked up her schoolbag and slung it over her shoulder, then bent down to put on her shoes. Shinji glanced awkwardly at Misato's room. The door was still shut. His hesitation earned him another insult from the redhead.

"Baka, are you coming or not?" Asuka shouted. Her voice reverberated around the hallway.

"In just one minute." Shinji seized a sheet of paper and scribbled:

_Misato:_

_Gone to school, will be back at usual time to make dinner_

_Shinji_

He threw on his shoes and locked the door, running to catch up with Asuka. She was already in the elevator, exasperatedly holding the door open. Funny, his shoes felt unusually tight today...

"Your shoes are on backwards," Asuka glared at him, as he placed both hands on his knees and breathed heavily. Shinji looked down and colored. Indeed, his left shoe was on his right foot, and the right shoe on his left. He only managed to retie one shoe in the time it took for them to reach the first floor and had to hop out on one foot while tying the other, feeling like an idiot.

He walked behind her all the way to school, not wanting to rouse anymore shouting, especially not now that she thought he was a drunkard who didn't even know which shoe went on which foot.

Rei was already there when they arrived, as she usually was. Her schoolbag rested in the center of her desk, where there was no danger of it falling off. Her gaze was directed out the window. Asuka stormed past and slammed her bag down, then turned to Hikari and directed a dirty look at Shinji.

"Hello, Ayanami," he said softly.

She didn't turn her head, but for a fleeting moment she glanced in his direction.

"Hey SHINJI!"

Kensuke and Toji were waving at him eagerly from the doorway. Shinji smiled and hurried toward them, but tripped over the strap of Hikari's bag and fell flat on his face.

"Sorry..." he quickly offered, while Kensuke and Toji burst into laughter. Asuka glowered at him. Hikari, however, simply picked up the bag and moved it out of his way.

"Don't worry about it, Ikari-kun." And rather fiercely to Toji and Kensuke, "Don't laugh at him!"

"Sorry, Class Rep..." Toji offered politely, but Shinji thought he detected the faintest hint of pink on his cheeks. Then he noticed that Hikari wore the same expression when informing him cordially that it didn't matter. The other thing he heard was Asuka informing her that "that baka" wasn't worth her apologies.

"We thought we'd go climb up on the roof before class for fun," Kensuke told Shinji. "Or maybe we'll stay there all class, I'm sure the teacher won't notice. Right, Toji? Ne? Hey, wake up!"

Toji, who had been wearing a rather dreamy expression, quickly came back to earth at Kensuke's sharp jab. Shinji wasn't speaking either, but his mind was on Misato.

Kensuke glanced from one to the other, and started grumbling. "Man, Toji is all smitten with the _Class Rep_, and Shinji is—well, _Shinji_—"

"I'm worried about Misato," he admitted. This immediately drew both of the boys' attention.

"What's wrong with her?"

"Well, she doesn't eat...she just wants to sleep... and she has these huge bruises all over her legs."

The boys glanced at each other, alarmed.

"I'll kill the man who did that," Toji growled, punching his right fist into his left hand.

"Showing an obvious interest in Misato now—what about the Class Rep?"

Toji's hands dropped to his sides and he quickly assumed a neutral expression. Shinji rolled his eyes and spoke over their voices. "We've already ruled that out. Misato says no one hurt her."

The bell rang.

Another usual school day began.

= = = = = = =

Gendo did not look happy, and this fact weighed heavily upon the doctor's mind as she smoothly instructed Maya what to do next. She knew the reason well—Misato's absence. She had been due for duty over an hour ago.

_Perhaps I should speak with him, tell him that the Major needs to rest—or she might not prove such an efficient Major_, Ritsuko thought, but that idea seemed no more feasible than wading through a swamp filled with hungry crocodiles. _Then again, Misato didn't want anyone to know what was going on..._

"Shall I transfer the data again, Sempai?"

"Hmm? No, that won't be necessary."

Gendo moved, and all of Nerv stopped to watch with baited breath. Nobody could remember the last time Gendo had smiled, so his usual expressionless frown was widely accepted as the ordinary—but now he had moved after sitting for only an hour. This was very bad.

_I'll have to talk to him_, Ritsuko thought grimly, _but not in front of the technicians...in the meantime, maybe Misato will show up and save me some trouble._

She didn't, however.

Eleven-thirty came and Maya took her lunch break while Shigeru and Makoto stayed on duty; at eleven-forty-five they would rotate. Gendo, too, retreated to his office, with Fuyutsuki following. Ritsuko hung behind, wanting to give Gendo some time to settle down. She had never interrupted him during his lunch break before, and she didn't think it would bode well. Ten minutes passed before she found herself standing in front of his door.

She knocked sharply, twice.

"Come in."

She obeyed, and the darkness of Gendo's office swallowed what little light came in with her. Ritsuko shut the door behind her and waited, thankful for the vast distance that separated her from the Commander of Nerv.

"Well, Dr. Akagi?"

He had reassumed the hide-face-behind-gloved-hands position, as Ritsuko thought of it. She cleared her throat.

"It came to my attention yesterday that Major Katsuragi was not well," she began, and when she detected no trace of any expression, continued. "Therefore, I gave her a routine checkup and ran some tests, suggesting that she rest as well."

The last line had not come out as well as she had wanted. She could only hope now that Gendo understood she had not meant for Misato to sleep through duty.

A long pause followed.

"I see."

Ritsuko nodded. She had nothing else to say. Another long pause ensued.

"Inform Major Katsuragi that she will rest herself as she needs," Gendo said at last, in a chilling tone. "However, should her presence be necessary, she will be required to arrive at Nerv immediately and present herself for duty."

"Yes, sir," Ritsuko replied, feeling shocked.

"Send me an official report of the test results."

"Yes, sir."

The door closed behind her.

= = = = = = =

"Hurry up, BAKA!"

"S-sorry..." As quietly as he could, Shinji turned the creaky doorknob and opened the door to the Katsuragi apartment. Asuka made her way in first, stepping on his toes as she did so. Shinji knew better than to say anything. She settled herself in her room to do homework while Shinji cooked dinner. His own work would have to wait until later.

The pilot of Evangelion Unit 01 left his bag by the door and found himself an apron in the kitchen, wondering what to make for dinner. Soup was good, he thought, remembering that Misato had not been feeling well and still wasn't, given her closed door. Weren't you supposed to give a patient lots of fluids? He pulled out a large pot and filled it with water.

By moving around several dozen cans of beer, Shinji managed to find some tomatoes—a little squishy, but they would do—and some eggs. A small bunch of leafy vegetables appeared a moment later, as he moved yet another stack of cans. It was past time to go grocery shopping. Fortunately, a quick inspection of the cupboards yielded packaged noodles, more than enough for all of them. Noodles and soup seemed to make a somewhat redundant meal, but it was the best he could manage under the circumstances. Shinji chopped up the vegetables and tomatoes, beat the eggs, and tossed everything into a large pot with the noodles and plenty of water.

Asuka poked her head into the kitchen. "Third Child, where's the dictionary?"

"On the bookshelf in my room, on the third or second shelf."

"Return things when you're done with them, will you?" Asuka snapped, then stormed off. Shinji didn't remind her that his bookshelf was the only one in the apartment, and where the dictionary usually resided. A moment later he heard an angry shriek from the direction of his room.

"BAKA! I meant the German-Japanese dictionary, not the English-Japanese dictionary!"

"Oh... well... that I don't know..."

The unwanted dictionary bounced off of the back of Shinji's head and came to a rest at his feet.

"Now how will I write my report?" Asuka seethed.

"You could tell me the words, and I could show you how to write them."

Instead of calming her, this had the opposite effect. The Second Child insisted loudly that she did not—and would never—need his help, and followed it up with lots of insults before disappearing off to her room.

She reappeared in plenty of time for dinner, but Misato didn't. Her door remained closed and silent all the way through the meal. Shinji knocked repeatedly and even tried to pull it open, but found it locked. Several days passed in this way.

Nothing could have prepared him for Friday morning, however. He awoke to the persistent beeping of his clock, as usual, but upon opening the door heard sounds of running water. Perhaps Misato or Asuka had gotten up to use the restroom—usually neither was awake at this time—but it was Misato in the kitchen, heartily draining a can of beer and playing with Pen-pen, occasionally giving him a sip or two.

"Good morning, Shinji," she said brightly, and he was relieved to see some color back in her face.

"Good morning," he responded, popping two pieces of bread into the toaster. "I'm glad you're feeling better."

Misato grinned. "Ritsuko was right. A good night's sleep does work wonders. Hey, Pen-pen! Leave me some beer!"

The penguin made an angry sound, and Shinji quickly fetched (and opened) another can of Yebisu. He caught a glimpse of her legs as he placed the can in front of Pen-pen, however, and noticed that the bruises were just as unmistakable as before. Perhaps it was just him, but they seemed to have grown even larger...

A loud slam announced the arrival of Sohryu Asuka Langley. Shinji quickly stacked the toast on a plate and placed it at her spot. She said nothing, looking unusually pale, and sat down to eat. Misato noticed her unusual behavior as well and offered to drive them to school, since it was on the way to Nerv anyway. Asuka acknowledged this with barely a nod.

= = = = = = =

Ritsuko was delighted to see the color back in Misato's face, and even the alarming sight of those bruises couldn't lower her spirits. Maya cheered and Makoto grinned widely as she took her usual place behind the three technicians. Nerv was complete again.

"I see you took my advice," the blonde doctor said.

"Yeah, even Asuka couldn't wake me, although I did dream about her screaming at Shinji over a dictionary..."

Ritsuko chuckled. Something beeped, and Maya called for her. The doctor examined the results and grinned widely. "Misato, come and look at this, will you? No errors at all! It looks all of the units are in perfect shape!"

"Really?" That's wonderful news!" Misato had gone only a few steps before she tripped over the leg of Makoto's chair. Her knee scraped against a broken piece of plastic on the seat and began to bleed. He blushed and quickly helped her up.

"Damn..."

Ritsuko peered at it. "That shouldn't be hard to fix." She found a bandage and applied it tightly, changing the subject. "Which dress are you going to wear tomorrow?"

"Oh, the wedding party...well, I just wore that suit to Kiyomi's party," Misato said thoughtfully, watching Ritsuko wipe off the blood with a paper towel. "And I wore the navy-blue dress to Kotoko's." She shifted in her chair and jerked as a spasm of pain shot through her leg. Makoto glanced at her in fear. She smiled at him, assuring him she was fine, and turned back to Ritsuko. "Maybe I should buy a new one on the way home today, but that'll cost a lot... damn, everyone is so eager to marry before they turn thirty years old nowadays!"

Ritsuko chuckled. "We don't want to be the last ones remaining single." She scribbled a note on her clipboard and called out to the pilots.

"All right, you're done for the day. Good job."

Misato watched the image of Asuka toss its red hair. "Always tests, tests! These stupid tests!"

Hours later, when all tests were done and the pilots had gone home, Ritsuko asked, "Are you interested in shopping today?"

"Not particularly," the Major considered. "But I'll have to find something to wear. In any case, I want to get a good night's sleep for tomorrow night."

"Suit yourself."

Misato lifted herself out of the chair, pushing down hard on both armrests. When she stood up, however, the muscle tensed and a fresh stream of blood spurted down her leg.

"Damn it... hey Ritsuko, do you mind fixing this up for me?"

"It hasn't clotted yet?" Ritsuko asked, in a voice tinged with the faintest hint of panic. "Maya, get me a bandage?"

"Yes, Sempai."

Ritsuko tore off the old bandage ("Ouch, be careful!") and carefully reapplied the new one after cleaning up the wound as best as she could. The cut wasn't deep and didn't require stitches, but it showed no signs of ceasing to bleed anytime soon. Ritsuko fastened the bandage and stood back. "Do you want me to help you to the car?"

"Nope. See you tomorrow."

Ritsuko watched uncomfortably as Misato limped slowly to the door and exited. She had a faint idea of what was wrong, but knew from experience not to jump the gun. Somehow she became aware that Misato's blood was still on her hand, and made to clean it off. Under the bright lights the doctor noticed a slightly whitish tinge to the fluid.

She blinked several times, thinking of the laboratory tests she had run with Misato's blood samples. The Full Blood Count and Hematocrit Assay she had completed on her own, and both supported—but did not confirm—her suspicions. Yet this—Ritsuko glanced at her hand again before rinsing the blood off—this worried her. It was time to contact a specialist.

= = = = = = =

"I'm back."

"Hi," Asuka said, without looking at her.

"Go to bed right now, because you have a date tomorrow," Misato ordered. The redhead was spread out in the living room, reading a magazine. The TV was on but she paid not the least bit of attention. Asuka flipped a page.

"Yeah... hey, can I use your lavender perfume?"

"Nope, that's not for you. You're still a child. Is Shinji-kun in his room?"

"You're so stingy," Asuka complained. "And he's been shutting himself inside for awhile; it seems that he doesn't want to see his father. Japanese people are such a..."

_It's not that he really hates it,_ Misato thought to herself, tuning out Asuka's voice as she closed the door. He was lying on the bed, the SDAT player in his hand, although the tiny mechanisms were still. The lights were off.

"You're not afraid of being with your father alone, are you?" she said quietly, into the darkness. "You can't always run away; you have to go one step further; otherwise, nothing will change."

She half expected a violent outburst, but he replied with only a sigh and two words: "I know."

"You'll have to go beyond the first step, and keep going," she told him softly. Shinji didn't move. "Anyhow, you'd better prepare yourself mentally, since tomorrow you'll see your mother."

He said nothing. The boy wasn't even facing her, although she was seated on the edge of his bed. Misato knew he wasn't asleep but understood his need for solitude, and she let him have it. She stayed silent, pondering Ritsuko's words of not wanting to be the only single woman remaining.

"Hey, you bought a dress for tomorrow? Let me see!"

Asuka had finally lost interest in the magazine. She laughed a little, remembering, and left Shinji's side. "You want to see? It was quite expensive."

= = = = = = =

"Red, blue, and yellow..."

Ritsuko tapped her fingers on the table and propped her head up with the other hand. "He's late."

"That idiot's never showed up on time." Misato drank deeply.

"Only when he's on a date," Ritsuko contradicted. "He was quite punctual when it came to work hours."

Kaji slid in beside the Major, making her uncomfortably nervous.

"You two look quite beautiful today," he said, and Misato glared at him again. "Unfortunately I couldn't leave work on time."

"That's because you're always wasting time," Misato grumbled. "And why don't you shave that sloppy beard? Besides, your tie is a mess." She reached over and fixed it, nearly strangling him in the process. Kaji pasted an apologetic look on his face.

"Sorry."

Ritsuko was having trouble trying not to laugh. "You two look like wife and husband!"

Misato blanched, and Kaji affirmed the doctor's point. The purple-haired woman snorted, drank from her glass, and set it down with a noisy _clunk_. "Who would marry this sort of guy?" She pushed her chair back and stood up, a bit unsteadily. "I'm going to fix my hair."

"Need an arm?" Kaji asked, rising to the occasion in a gentlemanly fashion. Misato glared at him and began moving away as quickly as she could, but stumbled. Both Ritsuko and Kaji made their way to her side, but she slapped the man away.

"Is it still your leg?" Ritsuko muttered urgently, under her breath.

"At least...it's not bleed...bleeding anymore," Misato whispered, her sentence torn into fragments by her ragged breathing. She remained on her knees, coughing and gasping for air. People began to crowd around her, murmuring feverishly. Misato covered her mouth with one hand as she coughed violently, and waved the other desperately, muttering something that sounded to Ritsuko like "I'm fine. I'm fine."

Kaji kept one hand on her shoulder after it became clear that she wouldn't push him away, his mind clouded with fear and worry. _She seemed fine just a minute ago. What did she say to Ritsuko—something not bleeding anymore_?

When her face developed a tint of blue, he picked her up and swung her into his arms as if she weighed nothing more than a feather. The crowd automatically parted for him as he hurried towards the door.

Ritsuko remained in the throng of people. She knew of Kaji's true feelings for Misato and trusted him with her. That man would get her medical help if it would cost him his life.

Her cell phone rang then, and she pulled it out of her pocket to see who had called. The glowing panel read quite simply, "Namika."

Ritsuko put the phone to her ear and hurried away from the crowd.

= = = = = = =

It was near midnight when the building that contained the Katsuragi apartment came into view. Both of them were exhausted, but Misato was fast asleep and nestled in Kaji's strong arms, while he walked on toward her home. He hoped Asuka was asleep; it would be much easier to explain the situation to Shinji-kun.

Her coughing attack had calmed down substantially by the time he got her to the emergency room, and the paramedics there hadn't been able to do much of anything at the moment, except produce some sedatives to calm the distraught young woman. They had taken x-rays of her lungs and scolded them about the amount of alcohol she had downed (Kaji was the only one awake to take the blame, however), before telling them that there was nothing else they could do for her and he'd better get her home. She slept the whole way and barely moved, but even Kaji's muscular arms were becoming tired after the long walk home. It would have been far easier to sling her over his shoulder, but he didn't think that would be very comfortable for her, so he continued to cradle her in his arms.

He came to the door labeled "M. Katsuragi", but had to think a moment about how to get one of the two present inhabitants to come answer the door. With his hands full, knocking on the door was out of the question. He finally managed to balance on one leg, flamingo-style, with the other leg replacing his arm under her knees. Kaji rapped on the door twice and quickly reshifted his position.

Much to his dismay, it was Asuka who answered the door with a loud "KAJI-SAN!" and Shinji-kun who poked his head out shyly from his door, earphones trailing behind him.

"Be quiet," he motioned urgently, and proceeded to make his way to her room. He knew the apartment well enough. Both Asuka and Shinji followed him to the door. Kaji would have liked for a moment alone with Misato, but knew that it wouldn't happen with the two pilots watching him.

"Okay, I'm leaving."

"Why don't you stay here tonight?" Asuka wheedled. She hurried to him and clung to his sleeve as he walked out.

"Because people will laugh at me if I go to the office tomorrow in this same suit," he said nonchalantly, smoothing over the worry he felt. _How much sleep will Katsuragi be able to get with _her _around? _Even now she was continuing her tirade.

"That doesn't matter! It's fine! HEY!" KAJI-SAN..." Kaji slid deftly out the door, just in time to hear Asuka lament, "...he smells of lavender..."

He poked his head back in and was relieved to see that Shinji was still there. Directing his gaze at the pilot of Unit 01, he ordered, "Take care of Katsuragi," waved, and disappeared. Shinji nodded faintly, and Kaji closed the door behind him.

For him, the night was over. For Ritsuko, it had just begun.

= = = = = = =

Dr. Ishiyama patted the familiar machine and waited patiently, not minding the late hour. She didn't see Ritsuko too much these days; the blonde doctor was always fussing over MAGI and she worked as a top specialist within the Nerv hospital. She and Misato had sat together in class, oftentimes passing notes and giggling during lectures, while Ritsuko sat up front attentively and took notes for all three of them. Once in awhile she would still see the purple-haired lady at the bedside of the Third Child. But it now was her, not the Third Child, that they was concerned for.

Ritsuko appeared just then with two vials and a clipboard in hand. "I've already run the Full Blood Count and Hematocrit Assay twice," she explained. Ritsuko had long held the suspicion that something was wrong with the blood coursing through Misato's body. The Full Blood Count was designed to determine the numbers of leukocytes (white blood cells), erythrocytes (red blood cells), and thrombocytes (platelets) while the Hematocrit Assay determined the percentage of blood that consisted solely of erythrocytes.

Dr. Ishiyama took the results from her and turned on the light. A violent storm was brewing outside, adding to the night darkness. Ritsuko took her place beside her old friend and watched as her brow furrowed.

"Thanks, Namika," she said quietly. "I'm sorry it's so late."

"No problem. I wouldn't want to wait either, after tonight. What would we do without Major Katsuragi?" She paused for a moment, moving only her eyeballs to scan the page. "FBC results tend to tell the most, but I'd like to look at the Hematocrit Assay first. 26.8% is quite low, within dangerous waters."

"Yes, since the normal woman averages 40.9% and anywhere between 34.9 to 46.9 is reasonable," Ritsuko said quietly. It all made sense. A low Hematocrit Assay reading meant that there were not enough erythrocytes in the bloodstream. Erythrocytes carried oxygen, and less red blood cells meant less oxygen. That would explain Misato's gasping for breath.

"Very good," Namika acknowledged with a smile. "You remember a lot from those few days you worked in the medical field."

Ritsuko shrugged and didn't tell the other doctor that nearly a minute had passed before she realized that FBC was simply an abbreviation for Full Blood Count. Namika placed the Hematocrit Assay results to the side, revealing the FBC report.

The report consisted of two halves which were nearly identical, save for some miniscule fluctuation of numbers. The doctor hardly blinked as she studied it, her face darkening. "High numbers of leukocytes and too few erythrocytes and platelets. Alarmingly few, in fact."

Ritsuko only nodded. Namika placed that sheet aside as well, divulging the last.

This sheet was handwritten on a simple lined page bearing the NERV icon. Namika didn't recognize her handwriting, but she knew the note-taking style that the blonde doctor used.

"I recorded every symptom I noticed, along with the date." Ritsuko shrugged. It was one of the things they'd been required to do in training; nowadays, it was just an old habit that she rarely exercised.

"The first one you noticed was nearly a week ago," Namika commented as she picked out the major parts, "and they all follow in a rapid sequence. May 10 – extreme fatigue, excessive bruising on hips and thighs, very typical — May 14, small cut from chair leg continues to bleed despite better spirits – tonight, difficulty walking, difficulty breathing..." She laid down the paper.

Ritsuko was nodding along almost rhythmically, having read and reread the paper thousands of times in a futile attempt to convince herself that the truth was not the truth. Her eyes were sad and not focused on anything in particular.

"I'm really glad you ran those tests when you did," Namika said quietly, placing her hand on the woman's shoulder. "The first thing a severe bruise like that calls for is a blood test, and I'm not surprised about the bleeding. A severe lack of platelets will do that to you."

The blonde only nodded.

Namika read the last page again. "Nothing happened between May 10 and May 14?"

"I didn't see her. I ordered her to bed rest. She didn't come to work, so I assume she complied, although I can't be sure of that."

Namika made a soft sound of understanding and hesitated a little. "Given the symptoms you've described, Ritsuko, and these test results, I'm sure only a few more tests will have to be run to determine the exact form of the disease."

Her shoulders sagged and her head drooped. Namika enveloped her friend in a bear hug. "You've done what you can, Ritsuko. If you hadn't done this when you did, her chances might be between slim and none."

"I kept hoping it wasn't true, damn it," the blonde muttered.

Namika glanced over her shoulder at the clock. It was nearly two-thirty, and they would both be due for duty in less than five hours. "Rit-chan, you need your sleep," she insisted gently, using her nickname. Ritsuko pulled back and made a face.

"You too, _Miki_."

It was Namika's turn to blush. "Ritsuko," she called suddenly, before the doctor had gone out the door, "don't speak to Misato about this yet. Make sure that she gets enough rest and doesn't overstrain herself for now. I'll tell you when I have the final results."

"I will."

Ritsuko unfolded her umbrella and walked into the heart of the storm. The wind tore it out of her hands and sent it hurtling out of sight. She paused for a moment, angrily trying to decide whether or not to go after it, and gave up. Within a few minutes she, too, had disappeared into the darkness of the night.

= = = = = = =

_"Baka! You burned it! It's all hard and black now!"_

"S-sorry..." 

"_The Great Shinji Ikari can't even make toast properly! Jeez!"_

"_Keep your voice down, _please _Asuka... you'll wake Misato up."_

"_Who gives a damn about her? SHE'S the one who was out with Kaji-san all night!"_

Misato smiled groggily, hearing her name creep into the conversation. She stretched and turned around so that her feet were resting on the floor. In the process she hit her leg on the metal frame, and the cut began to bleed again.

She stood on one leg, holding on to the edge of her desk for stability, trying to remember the events of last night.

_Kaji! He must've carried me home._

Misato made her way slowly into the kitchen, where Shinji was rather skillfully ducking the pieces of blackened crust flying his way.

"Good morning, Misato-san," Shinji whispered.

"Morning." She ate her slices without complaint. Someone knocked on the door and Shinji hurried to get it. A moment later Toji and Kensuke poked their heads into the kitchen.

"Can't we have some peace around here?" Asuka demanded. "First Misato getting drunk, then Shinji burning the toast, then you idiots—"

Kensuke grabbed Shinji's sleeve and Toji his bag, neither minding that he hadn't yet gotten to eat a bite of breakfast, and dragged him out the door. "See you later, Misato-san!"

"Such idiots." Asuka grumbled, as Pen-pen _wark_ed and went back to his breakfast. Then her gaze settled on Misato's legs. "What happened there?"

"I scraped my knee. Damn thing won't stop bleeding."

Had Misato been watching Asuka's face at that moment, she would have noticed the girl doing some quick thinking. The redhead was quick to put two and two together, remembering the bruises. A stunned expression glazed her features.

"Don't you have to go to school? I recall Shinji mentioning that you have a literature test today."

Asuka blinked to regain her composure. "Yeah, yeah, I don't need _you_ to remind me," she muttered, grabbing her bag and leaving her unfinished toast on the table. The door slammed behind her; outside, she took off at a run.

Sorhyu Asuka Langley was no doctor, but she'd taken enough biology and anatomy classes to give her a general gist of what was going on. She remembered reading a German article about a sixteen-year-old who had exhibited the same symptoms. The girl had struggled for a little less than a year before succumbing. _Damn Shinji for losing the dictionary_, she thought angrily. She knew the name of the malady in German, but had no idea what it translated to in Japanese.

"Asuka!" Hikari came up behind her with a bubbly smile. "Are you ready for the literature test?"

"Of course I am."

= = = = = = =

Ritsuko had hardly slept all night, but Namika had. She knew there were limits to the amount of strain the human body could take, and she didn't want to risk making any testing errors. As of now, no pilots were injured and she had finished bandaging the hand of the worker who'd cut himself. The time was 10:55 AM. Ritsuko was busy in the Geofront.

She found her cell phone and called Misato, telling her that the doctors wanted some blood work done. The Major resisted initially, explaining how her presence was needed at the Geofront, but eventually gave in. Namika knew she was confused—Ritsuko hadn't told her anything, and the name of Dr. Ishiyama had not initially been involved.

Twenty minutes later Misato arrived at her office, looking haggard and worn. Namika greeted her and asked her to change into a paper rope while she prepared the equipment.

"What equipment?" Misato asked. "Isn't it just a needle to draw some blood?"

Namika nodded, but added, "It's a bit more complicated, and it might take awhile, so I'd like to give you some general anesthesia. You'll be asleep for about two hours and you won't feel anything at all. Hopefully we'll have the results by the time you wake up." She turned around to give the Major some privacy while she changed.

"Has the Commander been notified of this?" Misato demanded. The paper robe was too big. She wound it around herself twice.

"Yes."

"All right then." Misato lay down, and the doctor began attaching nodules to her skin. Each was connected to a machine by a long, slender wire, and Namika explained that they were to monitor her major bodily functions. Nothing to worry about.

"Miki," Misato pressed, clearly not satisfied, "Ritsuko never went to all this trouble for a simple blood sample, and she took two from me last week. What's going on?"

Namika paused, then positioned the last nodule. "There are some tests that couldn't be run with the samples she drew," she explained smoothly. "For that reason, we need to take a bone marrow sample by drawing it out of your hipbone. You'll probably be sore for a week or so afterwards."

"I see," Misato said gravely. But Namika sensed that she didn't.

She held up the sterilized needle between her thumb and index finger. "Relax, Misato. Don't look down. This thing will be delivering the anesthesia into your veins and you'll be out in a few seconds." She inserted the needle, relieved that there was an obvious bluish vein on the inside of her elbow.

"It can't be that fast," Misato tried to say. But her words slurred, the ceiling tiles seemed to rearrange themselves, and before she knew it, she was out.

Namika was skilled, and this was a process she had performed hundreds of times. She unwrapped the sterilized needle and within minutes had it filled with the dark red marrow of Misato's hipbone, proceeding alone. The purple-haired woman did not stir. She stored the marrow away and taped some gauze over the puncture for the time being. The doctor stepped back and glanced at the multitude of machines that surrounded them. All of Misato's organs were functioning normally. Namika let out a breath of relief and began removing all the nodules.

With the help of an assistant, she moved the unconscious young woman into a wheelchair and wheeled her to a smaller room, then replaced her onto the bed. She would sleep here until the anesthesia wore off. A small camera, hung in the top corner of the room, focused on the patient and delivered live images to Namika's laboratory. The familiar beeping system would inform her when Misato was awake.

= = = = = = =

"B-type Harmonics test, all green."

"Clear all course adjusting values."

"Sempai, you look exhausted," Maya remarked. "Is something wrong?"

"Not really." Ritsuko sat down, glancing at her watch. It was 11:25—thirty minutes since Namika had called Misato away. Fortunately she had taken care of explaining the issue with Gendo, and somehow, surprisingly, he had given in. Ritsuko supposed he knew that a good Major would be exceedingly hard to replace, should he lose her, but Gendo was a man who didn't care about personal concerns—sickness included—as long as all went well at Nerv. Hell, she could think of up numerous instances where he had ordered her to duty despite her illness. So why was he being so lenient towards Misato? She wondered if Namika had told him of the seriousness of her illness.

The blonde knew how fast her friend worked and figured that the operation had to be over by now, but when they would have the results, she didn't know. She noticed that Maya was staring at her, the keyboard abandoned. Ritsuko slid it towards her and finished the program for her, typing with one hand. Maya snapped to attention and flushed. "I'm sorry, Sempai..."

"Don't worry about it."

_It's not for Maya to know what's going on_, Ritsuko reminded herself, _at least not yet_. She was frustrated that there was no one in the vicinity whom she could speak to about her worries.

= = = = = = =

On another floor, Namika bent over the microscope again, ignoring the fatigued complaints of her neck muscles, and adjusted the eyepiece. Small blotches of blue became visible, scattered across a yellow structure of irregular shape. She moved the slide slightly, focusing on another cell. The second cell was the same earthen color as the first, but had a much different shape, and was much smaller. Neither was simply round or square. The slide was covered with these oddly shaped white blood cells; both B and T cells were present. Namika turned back to the textbook, spread open beside the microscope, and turned a page.

_ALL is caused by abnormal growth and development of early nongranular white blood cells, or lymphocytes._

But shape and size weren't enough to convince the doctor that Misato really had ALL, and she pulled out a chart from the nearest drawer and taped it to the wall. This comprised of diagrams and information on certain antibodies. Each antibody had a small section of the chart dedicated to itself, and every piece of information relating to it was written in one color. There were no repeats.

Namika pulled out another slide and slid it into a larger machine, which immediately whirred to life. She reached for her computer screen and pressed the "on" button. An expanded image of the slide's contents flashed onto her screen. It showed one cell at a time, magnified to the size of her hand. The cell itself remained the same dingy yellow, but small objects of all shapes and colors were attached to it at certain places.

Those were the antibodies.

Namika had run an immunocytochemistry test as soon as the sample had been taken from Misato's hipbone. The advantage of this test was that instead of spouting out numbers of cells, it generated a color picture, from which a direct diagnosis could be made. Each type of antibody was dyed a different color and then allowed to attach to the binding sites of bone marrow cells. Some did and some didn't, depending on the bone marrow cell (which exhibited features of the disease it carried in its binding sites, thus allowing certain antibodies and not others to bind). Since each type of diseased bone marrow cell permitted different antibodies to attach, one could match up the attached antibodies with the appropriate disease.

Besides, it was easier to look at a color picture than black and white pages of data.

Namika pulled up a chair and a clipboard and began taking notes, glancing towards the chart every now and then for reference. Hours later she was still not finished when the familiar beeping went off. Namika got up and shut off the noise, then went to visit Misato.

She was still groggy and her eyes were barely open when Namika plunked down in a chair beside her bed. "How're you feeling?"

"Tired."

Namika reached for the blanket that had been partially kicked off and draped it back over Misato's bruised body. "You need to sleep, Misato. Don't worry about anything."

"What's... wrong with me?"

Her words were slurred as she drifted off into a peaceful sleep.

Namika was grateful that she didn't have to answer the question. She lingered only a few moments later to make sure that Misato was safely asleep, then returned to her lab. Another hour passed before she was interrupted by someone knocking on the door. She opened the door and almost walked into Ritsuko.

"Is it?" the blonde asked without preamble.

Without hesitation, Namika nodded.

= = = = = = =

_Sore_ was an understatement, Misato thought, as she propped herself up on her elbows. _Miki had better have the results by now. How long have I slept?_

Misato studied her surroundings. The room was tiny—her bed occupied precisely half of it, and she could touch the opposite wall with her hand from were she lay. The bed, too, was simple, with a clean white pillow and several sheets. All the walls were stark white.

The doorknob clicked, and she turned to see Namika step in. Ritsuko followed a step behind. Misato smiled feebly. "So, what is it?"

"Do you want something to drink?" Ritsuko asked. "You must be thirsty."

Misato sensed the evasiveness in her voice, and it annoyed her. "No, I don't. Hurry up—you know Gendo won't like us being away for so long."

Ritsuko opened her mouth to speak, but it was Namika who stepped forward, clipboard in hand. Her distinctly Japanese features were set in a determined expression. Misato felt a twinge of apprehension.

"Misato, you have Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia."

= = = = = = =

Author's Note: This is a story that I've been writing in my head for a long, long time, and it's a completely different approach from anything I've tried before. Any mistakes in the biology/symptoms are completely mine.

Originally I had planned to post all chapters of this fic at once, but now I really have no idea when it will actually be finished. Here's the first chapter; I hope you like it and I would appreciate any reviews you leave. Thanks!


	2. adjusting i

Misato blinked.

"I what?"

"You have Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia," Ritsuko enunciated, not quite sure exactly how much clearer she could make it. She glanced to her colleague for support. Namika hadn't moved. Her eyes were focused intently on Misato's face.

_They're not kidding_, Misato thought.

"Okay," she said, mustering the strength to speak calmly, "what do I do now?"

The doctor in Namika took over. "We start you on chemotherapy immediately, preferably by the end of this week," she said, "and we put you on a strict regimen of what you can eat and what you can't. You'll still need to limit what you do for the next two weeks, don't forget. I also want to start interferon therapy, which will slow the reproduction of leukemic cells. If all else fails, we'll try a bone marrow transplant."

Misato looked so stunned that Ritsuko reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. "Remember that you're in good hands, Misato. Namika's not going to let anything happen to you. She's not going to let you die."

The Major smiled then. "Yeah, _Miki, _who tripped over the power cord and broke all of Professor Nakamura's test tubes in the dark."

Namika blushed, remembering the scolding she had earned herself that unfortunate day.

"I'll find you a pair of crutches for the next few days," she said, changing the topic hastily. I'll arrange with Gendo to work out a compromise so that you can still work at NERV."

"Why is it that he gives into everything you ask for?" Ritsuko muttered.

Namika shrugged. "He likes his employees alive. Misato, I expect you want to speak with Commander Ikari—I'll see you back here in about an hour?"

"Yes."

= = = = = = =

Misato hardly noticed where she was going as she strode out of the hospital, scattering patients and staff alike. The twin doors slid open just in time; had they done so a moment later, she would have slammed into them. She marched back toward the Geofront and came a stop just before the last door. Fear and anger mingled inside her troubled mind, as she paused with one hand on the doorknob. Her hips throbbed with pain.

_Miki's made a mistake. I feel perfectly fine_.

But even as she mulled over the furious thoughts, the coughing began. Misato hung onto the doorknob with one hand and clamped the other over her mouth. _Where are those crutches Miki promised?_ When the spasms finally subsided, she remained bent over, clinging to the door for balance. Misato felt a strange creeping sensation down her spine. Someone was watching her.

She whirled around to find Rei, standing quietly a short distance away. Her expressionless face betrayed nothing, but Misato easily guessed her mission from the crutches she held.

"Mi—Dr. Ishiyama asked you to bring those, Rei?"

"Yes." She held them out. Misato took them from her hands.

"Thanks."

She nodded, just a simple gesture of acceptance. Misato didn't notice, however; she was busy adjusting the crutches to fit her height. Rei watched quietly, as she had not yet been given permission to leave. The Major leaned against the door, her knuckles already white from gripping the wooden handles.

"Surely all hell will break loose after I tell Asuka and Shinji..."

Rei contemplated this comment. Unlike what most people who knew her might expect, she liked Misato. The Major had never treated her like an object, nor harbored feelings of loathing towards her. She simply didn't know very much about the First, and Rei liked it that way.

Once, in the earlier days of Nerv, before Shinji and Asuka had come, Rei had been roughly ushered into the changing rooms for an urgent sync test. She jumped into her plug suit and hurried out, wondering about the persistent clanking sound that followed her. The young Rei had stood facing Dr. Akagi, with The Commander facing her left side. She chanced a glance at him and saw that his lips had formed an unpleasant line. Had she displeased him, somehow?

"Rei," Dr. Akagi had gestured, rather frostily, "your plug suit."

To her dismay, the girl realized that in her rush, she had failed to zip up her suit properly. The zipper was not pulled up all the way and caused the metal-lined sides to gnash against each other. Rei had reached behind her to fix the mistake—Dr. Akagi was in a rush—but the zipper got caught in her hair, and she could not see it since it was in the back—

"Let me help you with that." Misato had stepped forward smartly and freed the zipper. She zipped it up and, away from Ritsuko and Gendo's glances, patted Rei gently on the back. Rei had barely nodded and hurried away. It was not her place to stay, after all.

Hastily, Rei drew herself out of one of the few memories she treasured.

She had already heard the diagnosis from Dr. Akagi and Dr. Ishiyama earlier, but did not know exactly what it meant. Rei made a mental note to look it up, perhaps the next time her class was shuffled to the school library. However, there were things to take care of here, and Rei made a decision.

"Major Katsuragi?" Her voice was soft and delicate, and for a moment she suspected the Major had not heard. When Misato slowly looked up at her, Rei suddenly reconsidered, and finally decided to stay with her initial choice. "I will tell Pilot Ikari and Pilot Sorhyu."

_Have I gone too far? Will Major Katsuragi let me?_

To her relief, Misato smiled gratefully. "I would appreciate that, Rei." She repositioned the crutches and gingerly made her way off towards her place behind Makoto's chair. "Thank you."

Rei nodded.

= = = = = = =

She took the train for a short distance, and walked a bit afterwards to reach the building containing the Katsuragi apartment. While she knew that The Commander probably wouldn't mind her actions—he never cared what went on in Misato's apartment, as long as all three pilots could still pilot—Rei could not shake off the feeling of uneasiness. She was a bit concerned; after all, this was the first time she had extended such an offer, much less carried it out. But Misato had looked so thankful that the First Child almost smiled.

She rang the doorbell.

"Can you get it, Asuka?"

"Get it yourself!"

"I'm in the bathroom!"

"THEN HURRY UP!"

Rei waited patiently for Shinji to come to the door.

"Oh, Ayanami." He quickly stepped aside. "Come on in. Sorry... I was in the bathroom."

"I heard," she replied flatly. Shinji blushed.

Asuka marched out a moment later, dressed in a rather revealing blue dress that clashed horribly with her hair. "Where's my dinner, Third Child?"

"Erm... I... haven't made it... yet..."

"BAKA! I told you that I was going shopping with Hikari at six! Now I'll have to call her and cancel! And what is Wondergirl doing here?"

"I came to speak to you and Pilot Ikari."

Asuka blinked, picking up the subtle difference. "'I came to speak'? Not 'I was ordered to speak'? That's quite an achievement, Wondergirl, but whatever it is, it'll have to wait until this BAKA gets my dinner done. Now, I'm off to call Hikari."

Shinji winced at the death glare he received and hurried to the kitchen. "Why don't you stay for dinner, Ayanami?"

"Would it not be awkward for you and Pilot Sorhyu?"

"No, no it wouldn't," Shinji insisted, as he took out pots and pans. Rei watched interestedly as he removed some celery and carrots from the refrigerator and began to peel them. He needed neither cookbook nor measuring instruments—the skills were embedded in his hands and the recipes in his head. "You said you had something to tell us, Ayanami?"

"It would better for Pilot Sorhyu to be present as well," Rei replied smoothly. Shinji nodded acceptingly and turned back to the food. Asuka's angry shouts were clearly audible from her bedroom, and neither wanted to rouse her any further. The Third Child set some water to boil and dropped the sliced vegetables into the pot when bubbles began breaking on the surface.

"Erm... do you want something to do?" Shinji asked awkwardly. "You look kind of bored standing there."

"I would be happy to help, but I am afraid that you must show me what to do."

Under his directions, Rei washed her hands and found herself a large bowl and mixing spoon while he got out the cornmeal and flour. Shinji added those two ingredients along with salt and sugar and other powdered things she didn't recognize, followed by milk. Her job was to stir, and she did so emphatically. Shinji glanced at his watch and decided that there was time for another corn-related recipe, and began blending similar ingredients beside the quiet girl. That silence was interrupted when the Second came in.

"What are YOU doing in the kitchen, Wondergirl?!" she screeched. "I don't intend to eat anything that's been touched by your hands! They're probably sticky with LCL!"

Shinji blanched, but Rei was calm. She slowly set the spoon on the table, and held up both hands with their palms facing out, so that Asuka could see that there was no LCL. Asuka snorted, and Rei retracted her arms, heading for the sink. "If it will please you, Pilot Sorhyu, I will wash my hands again."

Asuka had temporarily run out of insults. It was rather hard to win an argument with someone who did not argue, so she instead turned to Shinji.

"Hikari is coming at seven to pick me up, so you'd better have dinner ready at six-thirty. That gives you... forty minutes." Asuka turned and flounced out of the kitchen.

"Sorry," Shinji mumbled.

"It does not matter." Rei gave the batter a final stir. "What should I do next?"

He found her a metal tray and spread some baking sheets across the surface. Rei brushed them with butter as Shinji spooned out the batter, forming small round circles. When those had been inserted into the oven, he poured his bowl of batter into two identical bread pans and set them to bake.

Rei set the table. Never did she go to such lengths for a meal when she ate alone at home. There was no one to share it with, no one to see her eat. She ate whatever was available wherever she wished to eat, usually on her bed or sitting on the floor. When Asuka strode in for the third time since Rei had arrived, the table was neatly set and Shinji was bringing over steaming bowls of food.

Asuka chose her customary seat and Shinji chose one as far away as possible, leaving Rei to sit between them. Without preamble they ate.

She had learned to observe people quietly without attracting their attention, and Rei exercised this skill now as she waited for the correct moment to break her news. It would be better done before Major Katsuragi came home, and she didn't quite know when that would be. Rei glanced at Shinji, who was timidly taking small bites of his cornbread. She looked in the other direction. Asuka was wolfing down bites of vegetable, probably in a rush so that she could ready herself for shopping.

Rei turned back to her own plate and took a bite of the corn cookies she had helped to make. They were buttery and crispy, and melted in her mouth. She reached for another one, and her hand collided with Asuka's.

"Move it, Wondergirl," she snapped, and Rei obeyed.

Her copper hair flashed in the light as she tossed it back and bit into the cookie. "Didn't you have something to say?"

"Yes," Rei agreed

"Well then, get it over with."

Rei hesitated a moment, trying to decide on the best way to word what she had to say. She was concerned mainly for the Third Child, who after all was much closer to Misato than Asuka. She had promised to protect him, and she knew that this news would wound him.

"Well?"

The Second was getting impatient. Rei decided to be direct.

"Major Katsuragi has Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia."

Shinji dropped his bread, and dove under the table to get it. When he reappeared, his face was white as paper. "How—what—how can that be possible? She's not going to...to..."

His gaze settled on Asuka, who looked perfectly calm and composed... and as Rei noted, her face bore not a hint of surprise.

"You _knew?!_" Shinji exclaimed.

"Well, wasn't it obvious?" Asuka retorted, but her voice quivered slightly.

"Why didn't you say something?"

"What was I supposed to say? 'Hey Misato, you know, it's kind of obvious that you've got leukemia'?"

There was an uncomfortable pause. He knew what leukemia was. They all did. It was cancer of the blood marrow.

"So what comes next?" Shinji asked fearfully.

"I do not know," Rei replied truthfully. But Asuka had some sort of an idea.

"Chemotherapy, perhaps a bone marrow transplant, but surgery's not really an option," she recited, holding up a finger for each treatment. She dropped her hands in exasperation at the incomprehensive expressions on Shinji and Rei's faces. "Oh come on. Don't tell me you don't know _anything_ about how leukemia is treated."

"Is she coming home tonight?" Shinji asked.

"I don't think so."

Shinji surveyed the table and wondered if his cooking was suitable for a person with leukemia to eat on a daily basis. If she was going to be hospitalized for a long time, perhaps he could bring her some food. He knew from experience that hospital food was not exactly fine cuisine.

The doorbell rang.

= = = = = = =

Namika wanted her hospitalized for the night.

What joy. She had not stayed overnight in a hospital since—well, since they found her after the Second Impact.

Only this time they were showered her constantly with well-meaning advice: she needed to be careful of what she ate and make sure that she got enough nutrition—she was not to eat any of her own cooking, Ritsuko had advised—oh, and regular sleep became a necessity. Namika was eager to start chemotherapy immediately, and Misato was not looking forward to the side effects. She fingered her long purple hair wistfully. It would be hard to lose it, but Namika could not guarantee her that that wouldn't happen.

She was feeling calmer about her diagnosis now. Miki and Ritsuko had fairly high hopes—after all, who could tell before the treatments began? Miki had brought her a wheelchair, which annoyed Misato: surely the doctor could see that she was getting along fine on crutches. Ritsuko pointed out that the soreness would peak in the next few days, and she would not want to have to walk her way down to the bathroom, which was halfway down the hallway.

They wheeled her to a much larger room containing only one bed and a large window that covered most of the far wall. Everything was white, and so brightly clean that it hurt her eyes. Misato got into bed and stared wistfully outside at the blooming gardens while Miki set up a flat-paneled television screen, hanging from the corner of the ceiling.

"There's already a TV in here," Misato pointed out.

"This one's only got one channel," Ritsuko explained, "and you'll be able to see exactly what's going on in the Geofront. Besides, should an angel attack while you're being hospitalized, we'll be able to hear everything you're saying, much like the way we can hear the pilots during a mission. That way you can direct the operation from bed." Ritsuko picked up a small remote on Misato's bedside table and pressed a button. The screen flashed to life. "Maya? Can you hear us?"

"Yes, Sempai," came Maya's voice, slightly altered by the machine. She turned around to face them and waved. "How is Major Katsuragi doing?"

"She's fine. Just testing the system." Ritsuko shut it off. "You can just keep it off at all times unless we call you to turn it in."

Misato was beginning to get suspicious at all the accommodations. "Just how long do you think I'll be in here?"

Ritsuko and Miki exchanged a nervous glance. Misato got annoyed and temporarily lost it. "_Damn it,_ I'm tired of being lied to. Am I going to die or not?"

"_No_," Miki said emphatically, "and I mean that, Misato. But we don't want you going home tonight partly because we don't want you bothered by the Second Child and more importantly, we don't want you eating any of your own cooking."

"All right." She mulled over the situation. "Can I call Shinji?"

Miki went to fetch her cell phone, which was still sitting in the recovering room with the rest of Misato's belongings. Ritsuko took the opportunity to sit down by her side.

"Shinji and Asuka don't know yet, huh?" she asked quietly.

Misato looked away. "I sent Rei to tell them."

_That wasn't right_, she thought, as Ritsuko nodded. _I didn't send her. Rei offered. It wouldn't make a difference with anyone else, but Rei..._

"I wonder how they'll fare tonight without you being there," Ritsuko remarked, a smile creeping onto her face. "I imagine Shinji will be cooking... Asuka will be displeased with whatever it is he makes...and Rei will just sit there in the middle and not comment. Oh, and Pen-pen will finish up your share of beer."

"You know us too well," Misato muttered, cracking a smile. Miki reappeared with the cell phone, and Ritsuko backed out of the room to give her some privacy.

= = = = = = =

"Hello?"

"Shin-chan?"

"Misato-san!" Shinji's voice broke with relief as he sank into the squashy couch, relieved that Asuka was not here to witness his "unmanly" behavior. Her voice was strained and did not hide the tension and exhaustion she was feeling, despite her best efforts.

On the other end, Misato smiled wanly. She fingered the folded edge of her blanket, holding it in place with her thumb and middle finger while running the side of her index finger over, back and forth. "How're you faring alone with Asuka?" She smiled to herself, wishing she could be there to see his blush.

"I-i-its not just Asuka! Ayanami was here earlier. She stayed for dinner."

_Very Rei-like to be punctual, _Misato thought. "She told you?"

"Yes."

There was a short pause.

"But Asuka knew already."

"How?" Misato exclaimed, surprised. _How could Asuka have known? And why... why hadn't she said anything?_

"I don't know," Shinji replied, sounding terribly depressed. Misato hated that tone of voice, and tried to cheer him up.

"Hey," she pressed urgently, "I don't know how you survived all those hospital visits on the stuff they serve here. Can you bring me some of your cooking?"

He brightened then. "Of course."

"How's Asuka?"

"She went out shopping with Hikari."

"And Rei?"

"Ayanami went home shortly after dinner."

Pause.

"Misato-san?"

"Hmm?"

"When will you be coming home?"

"I'll be back by tomorrow. Don't worry about me, just don't get yourself killed by Asuka, all right?"

"...all right..."

_He didn't sound very convinced_, Misato thought, a frown settling on her face. She slid down farther in bed until her toes touched the smooth wooden bedpost and sent a faint sensation of pain through her body.

_I wish they'd paint the walls a different color_, she thought, before drifting off to sleep.

= = = = = = =

_Nozomi would love that bento,_ Hikari thought, bending close to admire it through the windowpane. The box was shaped like a bird and divided into small sections—the head for rice, and the others for fish and vegetables and other Japanese delicacies. Hikari checked her purse. It would be a wonderful birthday present for her sister; after all, her old box was getting old and worn.

"Asuka, I'm going in here for a minute," she called. The redhead was facing away from her, hands clasped behind her back, her weight balanced on one foot while she tapped the other impatiently on the concrete sidewalk. "Hey, Asuka?"

"Yeah, yeah, go ahead, I'm listening."

Hikari shook her head and didn't question further. If Asuka wanted to tell her about it, she would. She looked through the store's supply of bentos and chose a blue one.

"Thank you," she said to the storekeeper, and came out. Asuka was waiting for her, and seemed eager to keep moving. Hikari looked down at her purchases. So far she had bought a pair of twin ribbons for her hair, a pair of chopsticks for Kodama, and the bento for Nozomi.

Asuka's hands were still empty.

"It isn't like you to windowshop so much," Hikari commented. Asuka was not at all a frugal shopper, and Hikari had spent long hours poring over clothes, debating whether or not Kaji would find it attractive.

The redhead blushed slightly, lowering her head, and Hikari decided to joke a bit with her. "It's not about Ikari-kun, is it?"

Asuka whirled around, her empty hands clenching into fists. "NO! It has NOTHING to do with that—that—_baka—_it's just..."

Hikari backed away, having never seen such anger directed at her—and especially not from Asuka. Her face was furrowed in anger—anger and frustration, Hikari thought, a quick apology dangling off the tip of her tongue, until Asuka's brows smoothed out and her livid expression slowly faded. Her hands unclenched and went limp as she closed her eyes, and a moment passed before Hikari recognized the look as one of hopelessness.

"Hikari..." Asuka whispered, "Misato has leukemia."

Instinctively Hikari gasped, pressing her hands to her mouth before realizing that that was not the reaction Asuka would have liked to see. "Oh, Asuka... but she'll be all right, won't she?"

Asuka glanced down the street.

Nobody noticed the two schoolgirls standing on the sidewalk. There were huge crowds of businessmen dressed in fancy suits, recently freed from their offices, heading out for a drink with their friends. A young mother led her child out of a shop while the boy cried and flailed his arms angrily, apparently disappointed that his mother wouldn't buy him the toy he wanted. Asuka drew in her skirt as they passed.

"Sorry," she apologized.

Asuka nodded and looked back up. The clouds were darkening. It was time for a summer storm.

"I don't know..."

It was unlike Asuka to be so indecisive and vulnerable, Hikari thought. She took the lead, looping her arm firmly around Asuka's. They walked down the street and avoided crowded areas. Perhaps she was being selfish, Hikari thought, but she didn't know this Asuka, and the new girl scared her. _I want the old Asuka back!_

She noticed a dress that Asuka was sure to like and dragged her inside.

"Try it on!" she urged. The skirt was pleated and the top half consisted of a v-shaped neckline and long sleeves. The entire garment was dyed a passionate shade of maroon.

Asuka was reluctant. "It's summer... and this thing has long sleeves."

"Oh, that would look just lovely on you!" the salesperson gushed, swooping down on them. "You certainly can't make a decision until you've tried it on! Go on, the fitting room is just over there." She placed an arm around the redhead's shoulder and led her over, showed her in, and pulled the curtain shut behind her.

"And what can I help you with?" she asked Hikari.

"Nothing," Hikari replied quickly. "I'll just wait for her." She gestured toward the curtain.

_I don't need a dress right now_, Asuka thought. She tugged on the zipper of her school uniform. It was stuck in her hair and refused to move either up or down. Asuka ripped out the offending strands and tried again. The back of her dress split neatly into two sides.

_This is more like something Misato would wear_.

The thought made her anxious again. For all the indifference she showed toward her commander, Asuka had grown to care. All the shields and barriers she had set up against the Japanese world—she was _German_, for goodness's sake—Misato had gently broken through all of them. Her drunkenness, her lack of appropriate clothing... _what would we do without Misato?_ Asuka slid into the dress and tied the straps at her shoulders.

"Are you done?" Hikari called.

"Yeah, give me a minute."

Asuka stepped out and obligingly twirled. The skirt fluttered about like butterfly wings and came back to a rest around her legs.

"Oh, it's just lovely," the saleslady gasped, clutching her hands together. "Do come over here and look in the mirror."

"It does look very nice, Asuka," Hikari added.

_It'd look nicer on Misato._

"It's a little big," she commented, pinching in the sides.

_Maybe I should get it as a Christmas present for her._

"I can fix that," Hikari pressed.

_If she's still alive then._

"No," Asuka ground out, "no, I don't want it." She tuned out all the protests and closed her eyes. _I don't want to be reminded of Misato every time I wear it. Damn it, why do I EVEN CARE?!_

"Shame," she heard someone say, "it looks rather nice on you."

The voice was masculine... and familiar...

... "Mr. Kaji!" Hikari exclaimed.

She opened her eyes to see him directly behind her in the mirror. Asuka knew immediately from his easy, nonchalant smile that he didn't yet know about Misato. She smiled too, not wanting him to see how upset she was.

Kaji swept Hikari up into a big bear hug before putting her down again. "You really should get it," he assured Asuka. "It brings out the color of your hair even more than it usually does."

She loved compliments from Kaji more than anyone else. Compliments from boys her age were a waste of her time. But then again...he couldn't know about Misato, or he wouldn't be making that sort of comment.

"No," she heard herself say, "I really don't think I'm going to get it."

They went for ice cream afterwards in a small outdoor café, shielded from the pouring rain by a large tri-colored umbrella. Asuka had strawberry and Hikari chose vanilla, while Kaji ordered a large chocolate cone for himself. Kaji pulled over another chair and wiped it dry, and the three seated themselves around the round table.

"You remember the time we brought ice cream on a summer boat ride in Germany?" Kaji reminded her, biting into his ice cream. He studied the dent for some time, while Asuka looked confused. "When you decided to take some out at noon and all that was left was chocolate syrup?"

"And I got it all over my hands," Asuka remembered then, cracking a small smile.

"Now, you're not getting out of telling the rest of the story," Kaji grinned. "Go on, tell Hikari what you did next."

"Kaji!" Asuka shouted, blushing, but Kaji simply laughed and managed to lean out of her reach while she attempted to cover his mouth.

"What happened?" Hikari asked, rather enjoying herself.

"She tried to get a napkin to wipe her hands off, and in getting up f—mmph!—ell over onto me, got choc—ouch!—chocolate handprints all over my shirt, and tipped the boat over."

Hikari giggled.

"Okay, okay, you can get off of me now... people are beginning to stare."

Asuka noted (with satisfaction) two pink handprints on the front of his shirt. She had rather liked doing that.

The table fell back into silence. Kaji finished his ice cream first, despite having eaten more than both of the girls put together. Hikari finished next and let her spoon fall to the ceramic bowl with a soft _clang_.

"Hey, this isn't like you," Kaji commented, watching Asuka stab her remaining ice cream with a spoon and flip it over. "Haven't you beat up any guys in school recently, or broken another swimming record, the last six of which were set by none other than the famous Sorhyu Asuka Langley?"

"Seven," she corrected him.

"All right, seven then." He watched, waiting for a response.

On any occasion Asuka would probably have laughed and thrown her arms around him, but today she only flipped the ice cream one last time and sighed. It was almost all melted. "Hey, Kaji... you haven't heard about Misato yet, have you?"

"Drunk again?"

"No." She held her voice steady. "She has leukemia."

Hikari watched dreadfully as Kaji froze.

"You can't be serious," he insisted, but a moment later shook his head. "No, it all makes sense. The bruising, the collapsing, the not being able to breathe..."

Asuka watched him, hating every moment of it. This was not the Kaji she knew, the one who liked to joke around and annoy Misato by occasionally hinting of Ritsuko. Kaji was not smiling. He had temporarily hidden his face in his hands, but a moment later he was looking up again.

"Mr. Kaji?" Hikari ventured tentatively. He looked at her and smiled.

"She'll be fine," he reassured them. "Come on, think about the things Katsuragi has survived. Second Impact," he began, counting on his fingers. "Numerous Angel attacks. Enough alcohol to kill anyone several times over. Her own cooking.

"And living with you, of course," he teased, elbowing Asuka. "A bit of cancer is nothing compared to that."

"HEY!"

Hikari had to laugh despite the seriousness of the situation. "Do you think there's anything we can do for her?"

Kaji grinned. "Bring her a meal once in awhile. I've heard from Shinji that hospital food is the only thing that can rival Katsuragi's cooking."

= = = = = = =

She woke sometime in the night after a series of fitful dreams, ranging from Second Impact to the dirty laundry at home. At least Shinji would take care of the latter.

Misato looked around her, disliking the unfamiliar room. _Just one night_, she told herself. _Then I can go home_. The room was dark and silent, save for the humming machines and their eerie green lights. _Green is good, _Misato thought humorlessly to herself. _Don't turn red on me_.

There was a bit of light streaming in from the hallway, and she used it to look for a clock.

_They put two TV's in here, but no clock!?_

Her cell phone should have the time.

Misato felt around blindly on the table for it. The tiny machine slipped through her fingers and smashed on the tiled floor with a loud _clatter_.

"Damn it..."

There were voices outside her door now. At least one belonged to a female. Although she didn't know why, Misato felt as if she had broken some invisible rule by being awake, and drew the blankets up to her nose.

_It's cold_, she thought, as the voices died away, followed by a set of clicking noises that could only be high heels. _Ritsuko, or maybe Miki?_ Her doorknob creaked, sending shivers of fear down her spine. She could have cried out in relief as the dark shadow opened her door, looked outside, and quickly shut it behind him. She recognized him instantly.

"What are you doing here?" she whispered.

"I wanted to come see you, but Rit-chan had to be all bossy and not let me in. And then _Namika_ shows up and—"

Misato put a finger to his lips to silence him. "It's way past visitor's hours, you know," she whispered. "But I'm glad you came."

"It's only two in the morning." She could tell by his silhouette that he was grinning. Kaji leaned over and kissed her on the forehead.

"How'd you find out?"

"Asuka. Ran into her while shopping."

"I can't really see you and Asuka shopping in the same store," she replied dryly.

Kaji snickered.

"Is there anything you want me to do for you?"

"Shinji and Asuka will be fine," she said thoughtfully, "they've survived the night without me before—and Shinji will tend to Pen-pen."

"I'm talking about you, not them."

"Then no."

The door opened and Misato shaded her eyes from the sudden flow of light. Namika stepped in and in angry shouts, demanded that Kaji leave at once.

"All right, all right, I'm going. Stop yelling—you don't want to wake up the rest of your patients, do you?" He held up his hands in a mock don't-shoot-me pose, and at the doorway gave Misato a salute. Fuming, Namika pushed him out.

Misato smiled happily. The next thing she saw was the sunrise.

= = = = = = =

"Good morning, Asuka."

"Hey," she muttered, which was a nice improvement from "BAKA, where's my breakfast!?", and went into the bathroom. Shinji shrugged and continued making pancakes, setting aside a large batch to bring to the hospital for Misato.

_She's coming home today_, Shinji thought, flipping the last of Asuka's pancakes onto her plate. He found the butter and cut three perfect slices to match the golden stack. _I should ask Ritsuko what I should cook for her._

In another room of the Katsuragi apartment, Asuka found her favorite comb—a present from Kaji, when she had first been selected as an Eva pilot—and drew it slowly through the long copper locks, watching herself in the mirror. How proud she was of that hair, that lustrous color...

"Asuka," Shinji called, "your breakfast's ready."

"Coming!"

She didn't show up until fifteen minutes later, however; by then her pancakes were cold and Shinji was already done with his. Misato's were tied up in a large cloth napkin. Asuka sighed.

"Couldn't you have reheated them?!"

"S-sorry..."

Shinji managed to escape Asuka's frustration for the time being by slipping into Misato's room and sliding the door shut behind him. He could at least neaten up her room and make it semi-suitable for living when she came home.

Her bed was unmade, the blanket lying halfway across the room and her pillow at the other end. Dirty laundry—or maybe it was clean, he really couldn't tell—covered the floor. Shinji had taken only one step when something sharp and metallic found its way into the sole of his foot. He bent down to see that it was an earring; the back piece was nowhere to be found. Slowly, his eyes came back to the bed, or what was left of it.

_That's a place to begin_, Shinji thought, and folded her blanket into a neat pile before stacking the pillow on top. _As for the clothes_...Shinji picked up a wad of material and quickly dropped it upon realizing what a revealing, translucent piece it was. He glanced cautiously toward the closed door, shuddering at the thought of what Asuka would do to him if she found that in his hands. The Third Child glanced back at it. Surely he had time to take just a tiny glimpse... it wouldn't take more than a second... no, he'd better not get caught with that. Shinji tossed it into the overflowing laundry basket beside the door. When the floor was once again visible, he returned his attention to the earring.

He'd never paid any attention to earrings before. They were just... well, they were those little dangling things that hung from girls' ears. Shinji ran his finger over the smooth white pearl. He couldn't imagine having two holes in his ears. Despite all the physical damage he had sustained over the months from piloting Eva—holes in his ears did not sound like fun. Shinji dropped the earring onto the dresser top and instinctively covered his ears.

The door slid open behind him.

"What _now_, baka? And—"Asuka's face developed a funny expression when he turned around. "Did you just stab yourself in both ears?"

"No," protested Shinji, feeling rather foolish as he lowered his hands.

Asuka blinked.

"Well then, hurry up," she snapped, and slammed the door. It bounced open again upon hitting the wall, and Shinji followed quietly.

They argued all the way to Nerv. Asuka told Shinji he ought to walk with his back straight, and Shinji muttered a comment about Asuka's back being so woodenly straight that he could iron clothes on it. This drew the fury of the Second Child, who immediately smacked him in the back of the head and complained in a loud voice about the repulsive feeling that his hair left on her hand. Shinji, who was temporarily at a loss for things to say, called a truce until they boarded the train. The old man on his left side snored loudly and shifted position so that he was nearly leaning on the Third Child, who leaned toward Asuka in a domino-like fashion.

"ECCHI! GET AWAY FROM ME!"

She pushed Shinji away with all the strength she had. That force not only knocked Shinji back where he belonged, it knocked him off his chair—along with the old man who had been peacefully sleeping.

"S-s-sorry..." Shinji groaned, awkwardly climbing off of the old man and clutching Misato's pancakes to his chest with one hand.

"Damn kids," the man grumbled. A moment later he was asleep again.

"You're staining your shirt," Asuka pointed out.

Shinji let out a groan as he lifted up Misato's pancakes and noticed that the grease had indeed left a large oily stain on his shirt. A young child who had watched the whole escapade pointed at him and laughed. The Third Child shrank inwardly into his seat.

"She probably wouldn't even be alive if it wasn't for us," Asuka muttered out of the corner of her mouth. Shinji looked up, surprised at the unexpected support.

Fifteen minutes later they tumbled out of the train and made their way to the Geofront, where Ritsuko was waiting. Her eyes came to rest on the dark spot on Shinji's shirt; Shinji, feeling compelled to say something, quickly asked, "Shall we go change into our plugsuits?"

"Not yet," Ritsuko said, and Maya gently shifted her sitting position.

"Where's Misato?" Asuka asked. "Isn't she coming home today?"

Ritsuko hesitated for a moment. "No, she's not."

Shinji's heart sank.

"As a matter of fact, that's what I need to speak to you about. Major Katsuragi may not be 'coming home' for quite a while," Ritsuko explained, and waited for a moment to gauge the expression of the pilots. Shinji simply looked heartbroken, while Asuka appeared shocked. "Therefore... we need to place the two of you with a temporary guardian until she is healthy enough to return."

_Until_, Shinji's brain reminded him. _Not If. That means she'll be okay_.

Asuka mulled over this for a while. "Who?"

Ritsuko made a jabbing gesture over her shoulder. "Maya."

= = = = = = =

"What do you mean I can't go home today?!"

Namika sighed and drew the blanket back over her indignant patient. "Really, Misato, you're worse than some of the children I've had to treat. Look—the sooner you get better, the sooner you can go home."

"What about Shinji and Asuka?"

"They're being relocated."

"_Relocated?!_"

"Calm down!" Namika studied the panel of jagged green lines, a definite frown settling in on her face. "I promise you, Ritsuko won't put them anywhere that you wouldn't approve of. And you three can go back to living on beer and instant food as soon as you're up to it."

"Relocated... like Eva units," Misato growled. Namika ignored the comment and handed her a pill. "What's that?"

"Chemotherapy."

"Oh."

She took it with a glass of water while Namika watched.

"Do you want the Geofront TV on?" she asked quietly, trying to be as understanding as she could. "At least you'll be able to see them."

"And have them see me in this condition? Hell no." Misato sighed and almost choked back a tear. "This is so frustrating. I want to be home with Shinji and Asuka and Pen-pen. I'm sorry I spent so much time drunk and neglecting them when I had the time."

Shigeru poked his head in at that moment, breaking the spell. "Dr. Ishiyama? Shinji sent these down for Misato. He said that they were for breakfast, and that he was sorry they were a bit late, and that he was also sorry they were rather squashed."

Misato had to smile at Shinji's thoughtfulness. Namika, however, looked thoughtful. "Shigeru, may I see that?"

He handed her the greasy napkin with a bow. The doctor untied the simple knot and the soft fragrance of buttered pancakes drifted out. Misato inhaled deeply and closed her eyes, almost imagining that she was back home. She was snapped back into reality when Namika stood up—with the pancakes—and made no effort to give them to her.

"Sorry, Misato, but this really isn't the sort of thing you should be eating now," Namika told her quietly. The look of disappointment on the Major's face was almost too much for her to bear and she turned away. "I'll bring you something to read in a few minutes...to...take away some of the boredom."

But Misato was already facing the opposite wall, not meeting her gaze.

= = = = = = =

"Yes, with Maya," Ritsuko said sternly, since Maya's cheeks were beginning to color after Asuka loudly voiced her disagreements.

"That's ridiculous! Shinji and I have gotten along fine plenty of times in the past without Misato! Right, Shinji?"

Shinji thought of what had happened that morning. "Well—"

Asuka kicked him. "Point is, we don't need a guardian to look after us! Besides, why hasn't Wondergirl been assigned one all this time?"

"Go ask The Commander about that," Ritsuko returned coldly. Maya's cheeks were nearly flaming by now, and she looked as if she would like nothing better than to run and hide under the desk. "We'll only be running one sync test today. After that, you'll be heading back to Misato's apartment to pack up whatever you need for an unlimited stay at Maya's house."

"This is ridiculous," Asuka growled.

But it didn't really sink in until she came out of the LCL-filled plug and saw two large trucks waiting outside of the Geofront, each with the NERV logo splashed across their sides.

"Does it look like enough to bring all your things?" Ritsuko came up behind her with a cup of coffee. "Go on, get in, they'll drive you over back to Misato's and over to Maya's after you load them up."

"Fine. But I'm not sitting next to that baka." Asuka surveyed the two trucks and chose the one to her right. "You take that one." She jabbed a finger to the left.

Shinji sighed resignedly and climbed into the passenger's seat.

Maya came to Ritsuko's side. "Do you really think it will work out, Sempai?"

"Oh, I expect so."

= = = = = = =

"NERV has provided extra beds and furniture," Ritsuko informed them. Her voice came blaring out of the speakerphone, occasionally resulting in a high-pitched squeal. "So all you need are your clothes and any personal items."

Shinji surveyed his room and couldn't imagine what he needed to bring. His entire wardrobe filled up only one cardboard box—and that was with his SDAT and school materials added. _I wonder what Maya's home looks like_? The Third Child picked up his box and exited his room.

It was his turn to be shocked.

He couldn't quite make it out of his room. Several dozen large cardboard boxes had been stacked between his room and the apartment door. From behind them he heard Asuka's voice, no doubt directing the agents to carry her boxes out to the truck.

"Asuka?" he called.

"What do you want?" One of the boxes shifted slightly, just enough so that Asuka's angry face peeped out at him.

"_What _is all this stuff?!"

"Oh, my clothes, my hair things, my books, my school materials, my photo albums from Germany..." Asuka counted them on her fingers. Shinji shifted uncomfortably. "Just sit and wait until they finish loading! It won't take _that_ long!"

Fifteen minutes later, Asuka's wall had finally disappeared and Shinji crossed the threshold out of Misato's apartment. No agents came to help him, so he carried his box downstairs alone, only to see that the backs of both trucks were shut and secured.

"B-but..." he stuttered.

"Sorry, kid," the driver shrugged. "We ran out of room."

He climbed into the front seat, followed by Pen-pen.

Having no choices left, Shinji sat in the passenger seat with his box on his lap. Being one of those large cardboard boxes originally used to hold a well-sized microwave oven, it blocked most of his view. Consequently the Third Child, who had quite been looking forward to the ride, was unable to see anything and had no idea where they were when the trucks stopped.

= = = = = = =

Maya lived alone in a second-story apartment not far from the Geofront. It was small but cozy, and she liked it that way. The apartment contained five rooms in total—two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a sitting room. She used the spare bedroom only when Ritsuko happened to be working late and stayed overnight at her home (her own house was much farther away) but now that would be Shinji's temporary room. She and Asuka, being the two females, would share her bedroom. NERV had taken care of all expenses for her, and now there were two identical beds squeezed into Maya's tiny bedroom.

She had hurried home to tidy things up while the pilots packed, and was now sitting on a faded green couch, sipping tea to calm herself. Her gaze fell on the family heirloom, a china vase her mother had passed down to her only a few weeks before her untimely death. Maya felt a twinge of loneliness and looked away. It would be nice to be living with other human beings again.

She heard a faint humming that grew louder and louder before stopping outside her window, followed by the loud demands of the Second Child. Maya opened the door to her balcony and exited, slowly making her way down the stairs.

_Please, don't let me have made a mistake in bringing them here_.

"Hello, Asuka," she smiled. "Can I help you with that?"

"Nope, I'm fine...where's my room?"

Maya showed her into their room. "Do you mind sharing with me?" she asked tentatively. Asuka let the box fall to the ground with a thud and stated that she didn't mind. But where could she put all her clothes? The remaining space in Maya's closet wouldn't hold twenty percent of her clothing.

Shinji's room, it turned out, was the next best place to put Asuka's things. The remainder of her clothes went into his closet, her hair things in a cabinet under the sink, and her memories of Germany remained in the box beside her pillow. Maya had already tripped over it twice.

She made tea for the pilots, hoping that it would help them settle in. Asuka sat opposing her, and Shinji sat between them. Pen-pen seated himself comfortably on the floor. Maya searched for a topic.

"Do... do you like my home?" she asked.

"It's very nice," Shinji commented, as if he were forced to say so.

Asuka considered the question. "It's not as big or as homelike as Misato's apartment," she said thoughtfully, and took a deep sip of tea. "But it's very cozy...and I like the color of the walls. Especially the blue of our room."

Maya smiled, relieved. She'd especially liked the fact that Asuka had commented on her walls. Unknown to her comrades at NERV, she loved color and had each room done in a different shade. Her own room was blue, while Shinji's was green. The bathroom curtains, towels, and rug came in varying shades of pink and red.

She smiled all through the evening, exceptionally happy that things had worked out nicely. Shinji helped her cook, and she was delighted to learn of several new techniques and recipes from him. Asuka remained in her room studying, explaining that she had to earn a one hundred on her next science test. Conversations were civil all through dinner. Ritsuko called around ten and Maya, beaming with excitement, told her the good news and invited her over the next day. The doctor readily agreed, since they were not expected at NERV tomorrow—it was Saturday.

Unfortunately, all was due to change the next morning.

Maya slept late, something she hardly ever did, and was awakened by a heavy textbook landing on her face. The impact instantly started a nosebleed; by the time her eyes were fully open, blood was streaming down her face.

"Damn it! Where _is it?_!"

Maya looked to her left and saw Asuka bending over a box with her legs slightly apart and throwing things over her shoulder. She ducked from a calculator and crawled over to the side for cover. The clock read 10:43. _Ritsuko will be here any minute, _Maya thought frantically. Another notebook came sailing her way and she ducked just in time.

"_Ashuka--_!_"_

Asuka made a strange movement that consisted of pivoting around the waist but not shifting her legs, so that she could see Maya. The poor girl's shirt was nearly soaked and she looked as if she had been drinking blood. The Second Child's eyes popped wide open before she ran out of the room, muttering something about towels.

The Third had gotten up before either of the females and seeing that neither was awake (or so he thought), had begun making breakfast. _Surely Maya won't mind if I do a little cooking here; she didn't mind last night, and she actually has a refrigerator complete with vegetables and fruit..._

Shinji flipped the second omelette onto a plate and began carrying the first two breakfasts toward the coffee table, stepping around the couch where Pen-pen lay fast asleep. At that moment Asuka came racing out of Maya's bedroom, and Shinji had a brief vision of red hair before he was knocked to the floor. Both plates smashed and one sizzling hot omelette landed on Pen-pen's stomach. The penguin let out a shriek and jumped up.

Maya managed to make her way out of her room just in time to see Pen-pen collide with the wooden shelf. Her precious china vase wobbled and fell, shattering on the floor.

And that was when Ritsuko strolled in, carrying a sack of oranges.

= = = = = = =

It occurred to Shinji that he had never seen Maya cry. Worried, angry, and panicked he had witnessed, but not tears. Yet here she sat, salty tears of hurt mingling with the blood, which continued to flow unchecked.

Ritsuko helped her to her feet and got her to the bathroom, closing the door behind her and leaving Asuka, Shinji, and Pen-pen outside. The penguin found some comfort in eating up the remains of the omelettes and Shinji busied himself with sweeping up the broken pieces of the vase. He hadn't known how much sentimental value it held for Maya, but now that it was gone he felt dreadfully guilty for his part in breaking it. Shinji sneaked a glance at Asuka. She had been watching him, but quickly looked away.

_At least you have something to do_, Asuka thought. Her hands were fumbling with each other, itching to find something with which to occupy themselves. Right now she was unneeded, and she couldn't see Maya ever wanting them inside her home again. The redhead crossed her legs, an uneasy expression coming over her face as she thought that Maya would certainly kick them out.

In the next room, Ritsuko kept the water running while Maya mopped unenthusiastically at her face.

"Do you think you can deal with them until we find another temporary home?" she asked.

"Y-you're going to move them?"

"Well, it doesn't particularly look like this is the best place for them ... or you, for that matter. Imagine if this happened during an Angel attack. We can't take such risks," Ritsuko told her quietly. Maya nodded imperceptibly and whispered an apology.

"Don't apologize," Ritsuko told her firmly. "And we'll keep this incident from the Major, all right?"

Maya nodded again. Ritsuko hugged her and stepped outside. Maya looked up in the mirror, hating the blotchiness of her face. As nice as it would be to live in peace, she would miss the one day of company she had spent with the pilots. The thought of the vase crept into her mind, and she strangled a sob in the towel. What was worse that she had failed in two of her most important duties: respecting the wishes of her long-gone mother, and protecting the interests of NERV.

= = = = = = =

Makoto offered to take them—a little too eagerly, Ritsuko thought, as she put down the phone. She had thought she'd heard a side comment from Shigeru about impressing Misato, but wasn't sure. Two teenagers and a penguin—no problem, Makoto had insisted. Bring them over anytime.

She went to visit Misato, whose spirits were quite low.

The Major was flipping through channels, alternating between live news and pre-Second-Impact movies. A yellowing copy of Daphne duMaurier's _Rebecca_ lay on her bedside table, next to her cell phone. Ritsuko noted from the positioning of her bookmark that she had read through a good part of it.

"The world never changes, does it?" Misato sighed, turning off the news and lying back across her bed. "Robbery, murder, corruption the like. How depressing."

She looked away from Ritsuko's face and glanced out the window, where sunlight was streaming in—but didn't quite reach her bedside.

"How're Shinji and Asuka?" she asked.

"They're fine. They're moving in with Hyuga tomorrow."

"Really? I thought the plan was Maya."

Ritsuko hesitated. "It changed...without reason."

Misato chuckled. "That's just like Commander Ikari. I'm not surprised."

Ritsuko was relieved that Misato hadn't guessed the actual reason, and did not bother to defend The Commander. "How's Miki treating you?"

"She took away my pancakes," Misato grumbled, suddenly grumpy again, "and replaced it with this damn thing." She picked morosely at the IV running into her left arm.

"I'm sorry about that."

There was a pause in which both attempted to find something to say.

"Have you talked to Kaji recently?"

Ritsuko scowled. "Not since Namika and I had to kick him out of your room."

"He has a NERV card, so he can get in here pretty much anytime he wants. The only things between him and me are you and Miki."

"And we're stronger than any locked door," Ritsuko proclaimed, drawing a small smile from Misato.

Pause.

"Hey Ritsuko?"

"Mmhmm?"

"When do you think I can go home?"

Ritsuko hesitated. Technically, Misato could go home anytime now—for only a short period—and she'd have to inject herself everyday with interferon, which would get rid of her leukemic symptoms and replace them with flu-like effects ("Wonderful tradeoff, isn't it," Misato had replied sardonically). The trouble was that there was no one at home to take care of her. Shinji would be busy with school and NERV duties, and neither of the doctors favored leaving her with the Second. The best place, Namika kept arguing, was where she was now, where the doctors could keep a constant eye on her. Miki took care of all the shots herself.

"I don't know," she replied finally. "But I'll arrange for Asuka and Shinji and Rei to stop by after they finish testing once in awhile."

"All right."

Misato picked up her copy of _Rebecca _and read for some time while Ritsuko perused the latest data in a chair beside her. Less than fifteen minutes had passed before Misato drifted calmly off to sleep. Gently, Ritsuko removed the book from her hands, replaced the bookmark, and left the room.

When Misato woke hours later, there was a large glass vase of brilliantly colored flowers beside her and a card pressed under it, with her name machine-printed on the envelope. She wondered who would have bothered to hide his or her identity so carefully. The yellow lilies wafted their sweet scent toward her, and she took the time to bend one down to her nose before fumbling for the card. The envelope was unsealed.

_Missed you—_

Followed by a scribbled signature that was imprinted in Misato's mind.

The Major slid down in bed and pressed the letter against her chest, tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes.

She wondered how he'd managed to evade Ritsuko and Namika yet again.

= = = = = = =

"Is all that stuff really hers, or does some of it belong to the penguin?" Makoto asked, staring wide-eyed at the two truckloads. "There's no way all of this is going to fit in my apartment."

His place was even smaller than Maya's, and he'd made a credible effort to clean up what seemed like years' worth of laundry and food stains on the carpet. Ritsuko had surveyed the apartment ahead of time and decided that his bedroom—the _only _bedroom—would belong to Asuka. He and Shinji could share the main room. She drove the extra bed over from Maya's herself.

"It's...all...hers..." Shigeru ground out as he climbed the last few steps, balancing a large box between his hands.

Ritsuko left the two men in the apartment and stepped onto the balcony. Looking down from twenty-one stories up, the Second Child simply resembled a large ball of fire.

"Asuka," she called loudly. The girl tipped her head back to look up. "You can't bring all that stuff up here!"

"Why not? I—"

The rest of her words were carried away by the wind, which blew shut the balcony door behind her. Ritsuko waited for it to die down before shouting, "There isn't enough room!"

The wind started up again. The doctor sighed and whirled around, banging on the door. Makoto opened it for her. Some time later she arrived at the bottom of the building and ordered the agents to put down their boxes where they lay.

"Asuka, there's barely enough room up there for three people, let alone all your boxes. Ninety percent of this is going to have to go. You can travel back to Misato's to get whatever you want anytime, but all of this stuff is ridiculous."

Asuka growled and considered. The German souvenirs ended up going back, as did three quarters of her wardrobe. Still, that left seven hefty boxes to be carried up. Shinji, who had to carry only his box and Pen-pen's belongings (which consisted of his food bowl and a few cans of beer), was already on his way up. Ritsuko had agreed to bring over Pen-pen's refrigerator, since he had not liked the night on Maya's couch.

"Hi, Hyuga-san," Shinji ventured nervously.

"Hey, welcome to my home." Makoto spread his arms wide in a beckoning gesture. "Just clothes and stuff in there?"

"Yes."

Clothing became an issue again. As usual, Asuka's wardrobe (even trimmed down as it was) took up Makoto's entire closet. He and Shinji, finally deciding that they really didn't care if their clothes were wrinkled, decided to use cardboard boxes for the time being. Besides, it would save Shinji from having to unpack. They chose to place Pen-pen's food bowl in the kitchen.

It was dark by the time they were all fed and settled in. Shigeru and Ritsuko had stayed for dinner, and were getting ready to head back to their respective homes.

"Watch out for yourself," the doctor cautioned Makoto as she slipped her shoes on. "We don't want a reoccurrence of what happened to Maya."

"Hai!" Makoto saluted proudly. "We will be fine."

Ritsuko smiled and followed Shigeru out.

Shinji took the bed at Makoto's insistence, and the technician took the couch. Within moments he was fast asleep, but the Third Child lay wide awake with his hands folded behind his head.

_Another unfamiliar ceiling_, he thought gloomily. He flipped over onto his side and another thought occurred to him.

_This bed smells like Asuka's shampoo._

= = = = = = =

"Do you really think he's all right?" Maya asked.

"Well, no one's heard from him since Saturday..." Ritsuko bent over to look at the screen and frowned at what she saw. "Although I'm sure Shinji would have called if something happened."

"He's quite late."

"I know." _I should've called him this morning to check that he was still alive,_ Ritsuko thought.

Several minutes passed before Makoto Hyuga pushed open the door and sank heavily into his chair. Ritsuko noticed deep, dark circles under both eyes. There was a "hmph" from behind her, and she turned to see that the Second and Third Children were glaring daggers at each other.

"Are you getting along all right?" Ritsuko asked the technician.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah we're fine, we're—we're good."

Ritsuko raised her eyebrows.

Makoto blushed and quickly looked away, focusing on his computer panel. _Ah damn it... what does this mean again?_ He rubbed his eyes and stared harder.

"Having trouble playing the Major's part?" Shigeru reached over and tapped the appropriate keys. The red screen disappeared.

"... no...well...you could say that..."

Ritsuko frowned and looked at The Commander's seat, today occupied by Fuyutsuki.

_Something is wrong_, she thought. _Something's going to happen._

= = = = = = =

"You _are_ sure it's here, right?"

"Well... I've never come here while being fully conscious..."

"Baka!" Asuka punched him. Shinji went flying into a door, which promptly rattled under his weight and set off a blaring alarm.

"Damn..."

Shinji sighed. He and Asuka continued making their way through the complicated hallways, the former rubbing the back of his head painfully. They rounded a corner and spotted a young brunette striding down the hallway. Her high heels clicked sharply over the sound of the alarm and the bottom of her white lab coat swished over her legs.

"Excuse me," Shinji whimpered, "where's the entrance to the hospital?"

She blinked. "This way."

They followed her for some distance before Asuka unplugged her ears long enough to ask the woman to shut off the alarm. She explained that that couldn't be done until the source of infiltration had been discovered, and Shinji quickly volunteered that information. Several minutes later all was silent, save for her heels.

"Who is she?" Asuka whispered to Shinji.

"I don't know..." The doors slid open to admit them.

There was no reception desk. After all, people did not call in to arrange an appointment here. Asuka looked around curiously, but Shinji kept following the brunette lady, not quite sure how she knew where they were headed—or if she did at all.

"She's in here." She held the door wide open, and Shinji heard someone cough.

"What is it, Miki?"

Asuka hesitated. Shinji placed a hand on her shoulder (this was the one time he wouldn't be killed for doing so) and gently steered her into the room.

Author's Notes: Hm... I really have nothing to say. Drop me and review and tell me how I'm doing.


	3. adjusting ii

Author's Note: Hi guys – since it's been so long; I decided to add a short note in here as a reminder of what happened at the end of Chapter 2 – Asuka and Shinji are on their way to visit Misato in the hospital. After a series of small mishaps, they've finally arrived at her room.

Edit: I didn't find out until today that quickedit had deleted all of my original dividers, so the story must have been really confusing - hopefully this clears it up!

* * *

She was crying. _Perhaps out of frustration, _Shinji thought. He sincerely hoped it wasn't out of pain. But she put on a genuine smile when Asuka and Shinji stepped into her room.

"Hey, Misato," Shinji took the first step, selecting the chair Ritsuko had sat on a few days ago. Asuka took a seat next to him and managed to keep her face impassive.

"Hey guys." Misato smiled wanly and sat up, but it was obvious that she was blinking back tears that had been threatening to spill down her cheeks. Her hair was a mess.

_She doesn't look so good_, Asuka thought miserably.

"So...so how do you guys like living with Hyuga-san?"

"It's pretty nice," Shinji remarked. "Although a lot more crowded."

"He has a nice view of Tokyo-3 from his window," Asuka commented. Misato chuckled, surprising them all.

"Is he still living on the 22nd floor?" she asked. The pilots nodded. "Last year we threw a surprise birthday party for Maya at his house. I got awfully drunk and almost fell off the balcony," she recalled with a crooked grin. "Haven't been back there since. I expect he's afraid to invite me over now."

The conversation died abruptly. She fingered her hair slowly, as if she were afraid to touch it. Shinji watched, perplexed, until a long strand suddenly gave way and fell onto the white covers.

Asuka gasped involuntarily and immediately regretted it. Misato's eyes welled up with tears and they spilled unchecked down her cheeks. She folded her legs and hugged her knees to her chest, burying her face in her blanket. Asuka and Shinji exchanged a concerned glance as their guardian wept helplessly, more strands of hair falling out from her movement.

"I haven't been able to brush it in a long time," he heard her say, her voice muffled in the blanket. "It just all keeps falling out..."

They let her cry herself out.

"So, how's school—"Misato tipped her head to the side and coughed. "—going?"

"I got a one hundred on my literature test," Asuka said promptly, pleased at the change of topic.

"Excellent – and you, Shinji?"

"I got..." Shinji sighed. "I got an eighty-nine..."

Misato waited for the blow to come, almost wanting it—it would be like being home again with her two charges arguing as usual—but it didn't come. Asuka was watching her and made no response to Shinji's low grade.

She smiled bracingly. "That's still a good score."

Silence again.

Misato hated it. No one knew what to say, and worst of all, they were all avoiding her eyes. She hated that Asuka hated to see her like this, with her hair falling out and her arm purpled from the damn IV line, even if it wasn't her fault. She hated that Shinji was hovering over her, looking so damn helpless, even if he had sent her that damned stack of pancakes which Namika had thrown away, damn it. She hated her body for betraying her when NERV needed her. When she needed herself.

She shifted position, and another clump of purple hair gave way.

Shinji started towards her. "Maybe you should try—"

"I don't need your help," she muttered coldly. Shinji retreated as if she had slapped him. "I'm not going to die, damn it! So quit treating me LIKE I AM!"

Shinji backed away as Misato, having finally lost it, grasped the lamp by its slender metal stem and hurled it with considerable strength. Asuka ducked into the squashy couch as stained glass smashed at her feet. The cell phone went flying next and barely missed Shinji's left ear.

"I'm _not_ going to die, damn it—!"

When finally every item within her reach lay in pieces on the floor, Misato stilled, still breathing deeply, her face flushed. She could not bear to face her young charges, wondering what they must think of her now. A baby cried in another room and she briefly regretted waking it up, though she couldn't imagine why there was a baby in NERV's hospital.

Asuka remained sitting on the couch, her legs pulled up beneath her as to avoid being hit by anything. She had unfolded some now, her arms resting down by her side. She stared not at Misato's face, but at her collarbone. It was too uncomfortable to even consider looking at her guardian's face. She chanced a glance at Shinji.

_Should I start cleaning up?_ Shinji thought. He had never seen Misato in such a state and didn't know how she would react.

The silence held for some time.

"I'm sorry," Misato whispered at last, not looking at them.

Neither responded initially. But when Misato raised her head to face them, Shinji was already on his knees, cleaning up the broken glass. A moment later Asuka joined him, plucking up the pieces of the cell phone and refitting them together. Misato watched guiltily, wishing she could get down and help them. She said nothing, and they did the same.

Shinji winced and rocked back on his heels, and both females leaned over to see what was going on. The Third had sliced his finger on a piece of glass and squeezed the cut tightly with his free hand.

"Here... I'll get a bandage," Asuka offered genuinely, and hurried out of the room.

When Asuka was gone, Misato tried again. "I'm sorry, Shinji."

He smiled at her, a simple gesture that meant the world to her. "It's all right. Don't be sorry... we all need to vent at times. There have been times when I was angry at you too."

_But you were justified—most of the time, anyway, _Misato thought, but she was touched that he had not added anything of the sort to his last sentence. She reached out to touch his shoulder as he continued to clean despite the bleeding. "Don't do that, Shinji, you'll get dust into your cut. And—"

He waited for her to finish as she swallowed.

"Thanks," she said quietly, "for everything you've done for me. You—and Asuka."

Both were smiling again when Asuka reappeared in the room. Shinji took it from her with a soft "thank you" and attempted to apply it himself, but had trouble managing both sides of the adhesive strip. Asuka did it for him and quickly turned back to her task while Shinji swept the pieces into the trash.

"I think it's working now," she remarked thoughtfully, concentrating intensely on the illuminated screen of Misato's cell phone. A moment later it gave off its trademark start-up ring and all three cheered.

"Thanks, Asuka," Misato said gratefully. "I'm sure Miki will be just _completely _delighted to see what I've done to this room..."

"I'm sure NERV can afford another table lamp," Asuka assured her unconcernedly, absentmindedly giving her hair a classic little shrug over the shoulder. Misato watched her longingly and Asuka turned away, feeling her face flush._ That was a stupid thing to do_. "Or we could always bring you one from home, since no one's living there right now."

"Oh, I don't think it'll come to that," Misato said hopefully. Then she glanced over their shoulders and smiled. "Hey, Rei."

Shinji and Asuka both jumped, wondering how long she had been watching them. The First Child stood casually in the doorway, her hands hanging at her sides, but her eyes were alert.

"Hello, Major Katsuragi," she greeted, nodding slightly before turning her attention to the pilots. "Dr. Akagi requests that Pilots Ikari and Sorhyu return to the Geofront."

"See you," Misato waved morosely, as they hurried out the door. Rei remained standing, no doubt waiting for permission to leave. But Misato didn't feel like giving her any.

"Did Ritsuko say she wanted you back in the Geofront too, Rei?"

"No," Rei admitted.

"Well then, do you want to sit down and talk to me for awhile?" Misato asked, summoning what she hoped was her cheeriest voice. She gestured toward the sofa that Asuka had previously occupied. "Don't worry, if Ritsuko gets angry I'll clear it up for you."

"I will stay," Rei agreed, then hesitated. "...if you would like me to."

"Well, I do," Misato insisted, so Rei sat down. "I still haven't gotten around to thanking for telling Shinji and Asuka the news."

"It was my duty," she replied simply. Rei sat with her hands folded in her lap and her legs together, both feet resting on the floor. Misato apologized for the lack of lighting and asked if she would mind pulling the curtains aside. Rei simply nodded and did as she was asked. Not wanting the conversation to die out, Misato asked another question.

"How's school? How are you doing in your classes?"

"I am doing fine; I have 99s or 98s in all my classes," Rei said calmly. Then a flush crept into her cheeks and she looked away quickly as she said it. "But I prefer gym class the most."

"You do, huh? Asuka's told me you're quite a swimmer."

"Does she really think so?" Rei asked, before she could stop herself. Her eyes widened as if she expected Misato to slap her. _It was not my place to say that_. Instinctively she turned away.

"Of course she does," Misato told her fiercely.

The First Child thought this over. "I... I have never been complimented by Pilot Sorhyu," she said at last, a pink blush blooming over her white cheeks. "I did not know..." Her voice trailed off. She looked as if she had caught herself saying too much, and Misato gently corrected her.

"Don't be embarrassed in front of me, Rei... I know we've hardly ever talked in the past, but still... if you ever want to talk about something, I'm here. And I would really appreciate it if you stopped in from time to time, when you're not busy or anything, if you don't mind talking to me..."

_I'm babbling, _Misato thought.

"I would like that very much."

"Sorry, what was that?"

"I would like that very much," Rei repeated, a faint smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

Misato opened her mouth to reply, but at that minute the room darkened substantially—to the point where she could barely to see Rei's face. She sat up quickly and looked out the open window. She could see nothing.

_That can't be a raincloud_, she thought.

Rei was already on her feet, hurrying to the window, but Namika blocked her path by throwing open the door.

"Rei—Ritsuko wants you down there now."

Rei nodded and dashed off. Since Misato had smashed the remote control (although Namika didn't quite know that yet), the doctor was forced to turn on the TV by using the buttons positioned at the base of the screen. It flashed to life, providing a live picture of what was going on at NERV. Misato caught a glimpse of a large sphere suspended in the sky, embellished with black and white strips.

"It'll take five minutes to evacuate the West Quarter," someone announced. Namika turned the volume up, pumping the button emphatically for maximum effect. "Target advancing slowly... at 2.5 km an hour."

"TURN IT DOWN!" Misato yelled, covering her ears. Everyone in the Geofront turned to look at her. "Erm... sorry...what's going on? The observation center of Mt. Fuji...?"

"It didn't detect anything," Shigeru reported. "It suddenly reported right above."

"Pattern orange. AT field not detected," Makoto added.

"Orange? What does that mean?" Misato asked, just as Ritsuko voiced the same thought—"Is this a new type of Angel?"

"MAGI is withholding its decision," Maya said quietly.

Misato was not liking this viewpoint. She could see Maya clearly, part of Shigeru, and only the back of Makoto's chair. Ritsuko was clearly visible, standing behind the technicians' chairs. But she could not see any of the MAGI's many panels and screens.

"Great, what a wonderful time for Commander Ikari to be absent," she muttered sarcastically. "Shinji? Asuka? Rei? Can you hear me?"

Static, then three matched replies.

"Yes ma'am."

Misato continued to direct the operation as if she were in the Geofront herself. Her own location made no difference now; however, her first words were to Ritsuko, asking her to move the camera so that she could have a better view.

"Target data is being sent to you," Misato told the pilots, examining Maya's work on the screen. "As of now, that's all we know. Approach carefully and watch how it reacts—and if you can, lure it away from the city."

"Shinji, you'll be going first?"

"What?!"

"Well, in any case, it's a job for a man of good record, daring, and the one with the highest sync ratio. Or do you have no confidence, Shin-chan?"

"I'm ready!" Shinji yelled indignantly. "I'll—I'll set a good example!"

"Hey guys..." Misato muttered, not wanting to hear an argument. But Shinji was already on his way. Asuka announced that Unit 02 would backup. Rei followed with a similar statement.

There was a long pause in which everyone held their breath, watching the Evas snake their way silently through the maze of Tokyo-3's buildings. Eva 01 clutched its gun closely, flattening itself as best as possible against a building. The power cord dragged behind while the sphere continued to loom ominously in the sky.

Misato heard Shinji's voice, low and urgent. "Ayanami, Asuka, are you in position?"

"Not yet," Rei muttered, darting across a street to a safer spot.

"I can't move that fast," Asuka groaned, and moved a few steps further. Her power cord got caught around a building and promptly snapped. "Damn..."

The massive hands of Eva 02 plucked up the spare cord and plugged it into its back. With that done, Asuka looked up and saw the striped sphere moving slowly.

_It's not doing anything... yet..._

From her room, Misato watched worriedly. She did not hear Shinji speaking to himself, but every NERV employee jumped when Evangelion Unit 01 unexpectedly leaped in front of the buildings and fired at the sphere, which instantly faded from sight.

"It vanished!" Ritsuko shouted.

"Pattern blue!" Makoto reported. "It's an angel—and it's right below Unit 01!"

* * *

It took a moment for Makoto's words to register in Shinji's mind. He had hesitated temporarily when the sphere disappeared, lowering his gun.

Then he saw the shadow, a black void ready to swallow him.

"A shadow?! Hey—HEY! What's this?!"

Eva 01 stepped backwards and fired into the shadow.

Shinji was screaming, terrified as his bullets disappeared into the dark abyss. His own voice drowned out Misato's "Run, Shinji-kun, get out of there!" even as Asuka's "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" reverberated around the inside of the plug.

"MISATO!" Shinji screamed. "WHAT'S HAPPENING? MISATO! ASUKA—ASUKA! AYANAMI! HELP ME! MISATO, CAN YOU HEAR ME?! MISATO!"

Despite knowing it was useless, Shinji continued to fire out of fright, watching helplessly as the blackness enveloped him.

* * *

"Eject the plug!" Misato shouted. Shinji's screaming of her name had left her shivering in dread of what the next few minutes would bring. Each scream cut into her like a sharp blade and she drew the blanket tighter around her shoulders, resisting the urge to plug her ears.

"No use! It's not responding!" Maya cried.

Shinji's screams continued to fill her hospital room—and then all was silent.

He was gone.

"ASUKA! REI! Rescue Unit 01!" Misato shouted. "And hurry!"

* * *

Asuka had watched in shock as Shinji disappeared into the angel, temporarily in a daze. Now she recovered quickly, feeling both angry and terrified.

"It's not particularly useful if you only get perfects on synchro tests, now is it?" she vented angrily. But in her mind, quietly, she added, _please, Shinji, don't be hurt._

Meanwhile, Rei made the mistake of firing at the sphere in the sky.

"It vanished again!" Maya exclaimed.

"Asuka, be careful!" Ritsuko admonished. "Watch for the shadow!"

Eva 02 looked down just in time and managed to mount a building before the darkness swallowed it as well. Asuka dug her weapon into the wall and used it to pull herself up. The blackness continued to spread even as Tokyo-3's buildings took refuge underground.

"Asuka!" She perked up at the sound of her name, spoken with a mechanically modified voice. "Rei! Withdraw."

"Wait—" Asuka had barely begun when Rei made the protest for her.

"But Unit 01 and Ikari-kun are still inside," the blue-haired pilot quietly reminded.

Asuka watched Misato struggle with her decision on a small illuminated panel of the entry plug wall. The Major's hands were balled into fists and they were quivering visibly, though her voice held just the slightest tremor.

"You're ordered to withdraw."

The girls obeyed.

* * *

As much as she disliked having the technicians stare curiously at her, Misato convinced Namika to let her go to the Geofront—just for a few hours, she insisted. Ritsuko was exploring the aspects of a possible rescue mission, frequently dashing to the dry-erase board to scribble a few more arrows, and Misato didn't like having to look at it through her TV. Namika wheeled her reluctantly to the Geofront, where she sat behind all the technicians.

"The power cord was disconnected when we pulled it up," Ritsuko explained, "and there is little internal battery power left, but if Shinji doesn't randomly move Eva around—that is, if he remains in life-support mode—he can survive for sixteen hours."

_Sixteen hours_, Misato thought. _What a tiny window of time. And most of that has passed already._

She leaned as far forward as she could so that she could speak privately to Maya without disturbing the presentation. "Did the radar pick up anything? Sonar?"

"No, nothing," Maya whispered. Misato leaned back, feeling defeated.

"In other words," Ritsuko continued, and Misato snapped back to attention. "The shadow that swallowed Evangelion Unit 01 is the main part of the angel; it can reach approximately 680 meters in diameter and has a thickness of only 3 nanometers." She sketched for emphasis as she talked. "It sustains that super-thin space with an inverted AT field, with the inside being an imaginary space called 'Dirac's Sea'."

"Then what's that sphere in the sky?" Misato asked.

"Nothing but a shadow," she replied calmly. "That should disappear when the main body is destroyed."

"We have to fight that black shadow?" Asuka wondered aloud, although in an undertone. She and Rei were still wearing their plugsuits, positioned at the very rear of the audience. "How can we target that thing?"

Ritsuko nodded and laid down her marker with a soft click as it hit the metal stand. The technicians, quickly realizing that the presentation was over, hurried back to their posts.

"The UN has decided to assemble a ground siege," Ritsuko said quietly, coming to sit beside Misato in Maya's now empty chair. "At least the shadow hasn't moved; it's stayed still ever since it reached a diameter of 600 meters." She gazed out the open door where several UN trucks were parked in a row. "I wonder if the ground forces will do any good?"

Misato didn't reply, tipping her head to the side, so that she could think without facing Ritsuko. Namika took advantage of this to suggest that Misato return to bed.

"No, no, I'm fine," Misato protested. "I _need_ to be here, Miki... you don't understand."

Namika was ready to argue, but Ritsuko stood up.

"I'll look after her, Miki," she said, in an authoritative tone that clearly implied the end of the discussion. Namika opened her mouth and closed it reluctantly. Ritsuko was, after all, her superior. She looked at Misato hesitantly.

"Please, Miki," Misato begged, as if she were a child asking to stay up just one more hour. "I'll be fine."

Namika gave in. "But," she insisted, directing her comment toward Ritsuko, "I want her back in bed...as soon as this operation is over."

Ritsuko met her gaze squarely. "She will be."

She nodded. There was nothing else to be said, although she was still not satisfied. Namika turned and walked away.

* * *

Asuka watched the helicopters warily circle the sphere with sinking feelings that ranged from "it's not going to work to "what will happen to Shinji?" She moved aside to clear the path for a UN truck and asked a technician for the time. Eight twenty-six PM. It was already dark outside. _And Shinji... Shinji will..._

_It's all his fault for ignoring the plan and acting on his own_, she thought angrily. But really, that wasn't what she was angry with him for. Perhaps she wasn't even angry with _him_—she was angry with herself, for letting him worry her. And then there was Misato, looking frail as could be, with what was left of her tousled purple hair tangled and untamed. It was still hard for her to accept Misato's situation—_strange, really_, she thought, _since I was the one who realized it first._

She turned to see Rei standing a short distance behind her, watching the UN's attempted siege in silence. Only the faintest glance out of the corner of her red eyes revealed that she knew Asuka was watching her.

Rei had not spoken to the Major since she had hurried out to the Geofront, and she did not try to do so now as Dr. Akagi made her way outside.

"...it's the only way that may be possible," she heard the doctor saying. "Dropping all existing 992 N-2 bombs into its center. Taking time into account and letting the two AT-field protected Evas infiltrate the imaginary space for only one millisecond. Focusing the explosive power and destroying both angel and Dirac's Sea."

_But Ikari-kun!_

The Major shared this thought. "But we don't know what will happen to Shinji!"

Dr. Akagi did not meet either of their eyes as she spoke. "Recovering the body of Unit 01 is the top priority in this operation. It may be badly damaged, but it'll be okay..."

Rei had never felt such dislike for anyone as she did for the blonde doctor at that moment. In three wide strides the shy, quiet pilot of Evangelion Unit 00 crossed the asphalt and stood head to head with Dr. Akagi.

_I have promised to protect Ikari-kun. I will keep that promise_.

"Yes?" Ritsuko asked, raising an irritated eyebrow.

"You cannot do this," Rei stormed angrily, a pink flush creeping into her white cheeks. "You cannot destroy Ikari-kun just like that."

"Yeah, Ritsuko," Misato edged into the conversation to take Rei's side. "I don't quite think..."

"The condition of the pilot can't be taken into account in this situation," Ritsuko said coldly.

Rei said nothing more, only kept her red-eyed glare evenly focused on Dr. Akagi's harsh face. Neither seemed willing to back down, Misato thought, glancing from one to the other, a wave of pride welling up within her at the thought of Rei standing up for Shinji.

Ritsuko broke the contact by plainly ignoring Rei. "Misato, I'll be commanding everything in this operation. Trust me." She left, brushing the pilot aside.

"Rei," Misato whispered. But Rei did not turn to look at her. It was Makoto who broke the spell.

"The entry plug's backup power has reached its theoretical limit!" the technician shouted, whirling around to face Misato and Ritsuko, who stood in the doorway. Several panels flashed red and reflected their light in his glasses.

Maya added, "The plug suit's life support system has almost reached the danger zone." She turned to look at Ritsuko, her eyes wide and filled with fear. "Sempai..."

"Let's move up the schedule twelve minutes then, while there's a chance that Shinji's still alive," Ritsuko ordered, without looking at her assistant. She had not noticed Rei wheeling Misato back into the building until they were almost by her side. "Asuka – Rei! Go get in position and wait for further instructions."

"Thanks," Misato whispered, but it was not clear to whom she was speaking.

* * *

Evangelion Unit 02 was crouching as close to the angel as her pilot dared. Despite having four eyes in her Eva, Asuka was having problems seeing in the dark and flickered on a light before quickly shutting it off. The angel had not moved.

"Hey, Wondergirl," she muttered, "where are you?"

Rei's head appeared temporarily in a corner of the entry plug. "Approximately one hundred meters due east of the angel."

"Get ready to generate the AT-field," Maya announced.

Asuka steeled herself, closing her eyes temporarily.

She was abruptly thrown on her side, gracelessly losing her balance as the ground gave a vicious quaver. Asuka placed a hand on the ground and brought herself back to a standing position with effort.

"What was that!?"

"Status!" Misato shouted, making an effort to leap out of the chair, but Ritsuko held her back.

"I don't know! All the gauges are all off the scale!" Maya cried out.

Ritsuko frowned. "But we haven't done anything..."

The speculation left Maya's lips as a whisper, but Ritsuko heard it and bristled. "Impossible! Unit 01 has zero power!"

Yet the ground shook again and they watched from the safety of the Geofront while Asuka let out a string of German curses as she was again knocked to the ground. One panel showed the red Evangelion rising back to its feet, while another showed that Eva Unit 00 had also managed to right itself.

_AT field,_ Asuka thought fiercely, concentrating on the sphere, _AT field_...

But her concentration was shattered as the sphere quivered and its white stripes blended into black. Her eyes widened as a bloodied hand exploded out of its side.

_Shinji!  
_

* * *

"_Shinji_-kun!"

"Misato!" Ritsuko shouted, but the Major had already vaulted out of her wheelchair and was running barefoot down toward the silent Evangelion Unit 01.

* * *

_It's over_.

His limbs felt as if they were made of lead, and he felt perfectly content to lie back motionlessly and stare at the ceiling while LCL pooled around him. Someone was pounding on the door outside, shouting his name. He chose to ignore it all.

The door burst open and a whoosh of cool air swirled into the entry plug. Someone heaved a cry and threw herself on top of him—_ouch, he thought—_and continued to sob his name, weaving her arms around his neck.

"Shinji-kun... Shinji-kun..."

Shinji made the effort to look down and saw purple hair.

"Misato...?"

He sat up a little, but the Major refused to let go.

"Shinji..."

"It's okay," he told her softly, helping her up so that she was supporting her own weight. "I'm all right."

Misato smiled through her tears. "I'm so g-gla-ad—"She started to cough, turning her head to the side. Shinji patted her back, not caring that both of them were soaked with LCL. Her coughing became hacking, more strained.

"Sh-h-inji..."

"MISATO!" Shinji screamed, plunging waist-deep into the LCL to hold her up.

An emergency squad appeared within the minute and lifted the unconscious Major Katsuragi onto a stretcher, her LCL-soaked clothing and hair staining the cloth a rusty orange.

Shinji sat silently in the entry plug, unable to move as the scene unfolded before him.

Several stories above him, Ritsuko did the same.

* * *

Asuka was glad to have Shinji home again. It had been rather uncomfortable sharing an apartment with only Hyuga-san, and she had passed the days by going to school early and finishing her afternoon chores at home quickly before disappearing into her bedroom. She had not expected to miss the Third Child.

Three days had passed since she had been to NERV. Secondhand reports from Makoto did not reveal much, but she at least had the comforting news that Misato was awake and her condition had stabilized. Shinji had been hospitalized for two nights and released on the third day. Asuka bombarded him with questions about Misato the moment he walked in the door and learned that she seemed to have recovered from the incident, but treatments were not having nearly as much success as the doctors had hoped. But it was Shinji's description of the doctors brushing out her hair that had hit Asuka the hardest. She knew from experience that cleaning LCL out of one's hair was not fun, and she could barely imagine what it must be like for Misato in her current condition.

Saturday morning Asuka poked her head out of the bathroom and called, "Shinji, are you done reading the newspapers?"

"Yeah, go ahead and take them."

"Thanks."

She'd tried yesterday to do it herself and failed miserably. Asuka hated more than anything to fail, but at least no one would have to know this time—except for Hikari. The class rep was currently making her way to Makoto Hyuga's apartment by train, quite oblivious of what the redhead expected her to do.

Asuka unfolded each newspaper to its maximum size and spread them thinly over the part of the floor that was positioned directly in front of the sink and mirror. When she could see none of the tiles, Asuka slipped back to her bedroom and returned with a pair of sharp scissors.

Back in the bathroom, the Second Child looked wistfully at her reflection and closed her eyes.

_This is for Misato,_ she thought determinedly. _I can do this_...

The doorbell rang, shattering her thoughts. Shinji opened the door for her, greeting the class rep with a bow.

"Good afternoon, Miss Horaki."

"Thank you, Ikari," Hikari rewarded him with a smile and glanced around the apartment interestedly before following her friend to the bathroom. "Asuka, what are all the newspapers for? Asuka?"

"Here," Asuka grunted, and Hikari turned to see her hoisting a chair from the dinner table. She set it in the center of the newspapers and casually announced, "You're going to cut my hair."

"What!" Hikari jumped back. "Asuka! I couldn't possibly do that! Your hair is so beautiful..."

She reached out to touch the copper strands, but the redhead jerked away and sat down, hissing, "Please... just do it..."

Hikari picked up the scissors uncertainly with one hand and a lock of hair with the other. It reached halfway down Asuka's back and glistened in the light. Hikari took a deep breath and snipped off about five inches.

"Too long," the redhead complained, "keep going."

Hikari selected a lock just behind Asuka's ear and held it between her index and middle fingers at the shoulder. "To here?"

"Shorter."

Hikari slid her fingers up an inch.

"No... shorter."

Unable to resist, Hikari asked incredulously, "You want a haircut like that of Miss Ayanami?!"

"Shorter," Asuka said firmly. "Erm... how about to here?" She placed her fingers just below the ear.

"All right." But the class rep didn't quite have the heart to do it, and Asuka didn't complain when the finished product was still a bit longer than she had asked for. Hikari put plenty of effort into her task, layering Asuka's hair as best as she could and blow-drying it after combing everything delicately with a wet brush. Only when she was done did she dare to ask.

"But Asuka... you always loved your hair. Why did you decide to cut it?"

Asuka's expression was clouded over in darkness. "It's been really hard for Misato to even look at me recently, with losing her hair to chemotherapy and all... I really didn't want her to hurt any more than she already did," she confessed.

Hikari nodded and hugged her friend. "I'm proud of you." She stepped back to look in the mirror, grinning. "It doesn't look so bad, if I do say so myself."

"You did a wonderful job," Asuka agreed.

* * *

Namika was in a furor, and rightly so.

"You knew perfectly well that she belonged in bed, and yet you chose to overwork her for six—SIX—hours! You—"

"Do you have any idea how depressed you've made her, cooped up in that little room—"

Miki slapped her. Ritsuko was forced to take a step back to regain her balance.

"All her latest test results show that—"

"Damn the 'latest test results', what matters is that—"

"Oh shut it, both of you," Misato said heavily, and both doctors fell silent. "Miki... don't kill Ritsuko, we wouldn't have much of a NERV without her... and Ritsuko... you know Miki only wants the best... for everyone."

She was lying in bed, covered with several thick blankets that did not hide the line running into her arm; the doctors' argument had woken her from her deep slumber despite the fact that they had been outside her room. Now Ritsuko and Namika guiltily slinked in, both glaring daggers at each other but reserving a sympathetic expression for Misato.

"How're you feeling?" Namika asked.

"Fine," Misato replied moodily, "bored."

Ritsuko gave her old classmate an I-told-you look that emphasized the swollen redness of her left cheek.

"Is Shinji still here?"

"Nope, he left this morning," Ritsuko said. "Don't worry, he's completely fine."

"Now you, Misato, on the other hand," Namika seized an opportunity to cut into the conversation, "I don't want you out of the hospital again anytime soon. You'll be no use in an angel attack if you're not alive to see it."

"But when I'm here—"

"We've arranged to have three more television screens installed." Ritsuko spoke over her. "That way, you'll be able to see the maps, the pilots, along with anything the MAGI shows... and us."

"All right," Misato agreed reluctantly.

She had not seen her reflection in several days. Either she had been too tired to lift her head, or just hadn't cared. She hadn't been awake when they raked the LCL out of the precious amount of hair she had left. It was thinning by the day, Misato thought gloomily. Then a thought occurred to her.

"Hey guys – I need a wig."

Both women blinked initially, but quickly recovered. Namika quickly deferred to Ritsuko, saying that the latter had had more experience with hair color. Ritsuko argued that Namika had had more experience dealing with what a patient might prefer. They compromised on the agreement that Namika would bring in an assortment of wigs for Misato to choose from.

* * *

"Hey, have you seen the transferee?"

"Another one? First Shinji, then the redheaded devil..."

Kensuke lowered his binoculars and pointed. "Well, it is another redhead... very short hair though, too bad she's facing away from us."

"Well, I hope she's nothing like Sorhyu," Toji muttered darkly and lay down across the shingles, staring up at the cloudless sky. The wind ruffled his hair and made bits of it stand on end.

Kensuke adjusted his binoculars. "Class rep's coming!" He made to get off the roof immediately, but Toji was reluctant to follow.

"Maybe we should stay up here, let the class rep come find us," he yawned, stretching as he did so. "I'm sure Sensei won't mind...Shinji's been gone half the time and he hasn't cared."

"Right, right," Kensuke said tonelessly. "So you really like the class rep, huh?"

Toji tossed a baseball with one hand and caught it nimbly with the other while he contemplated his answer. "She's not bad."

"AIDA! SUZUHARA!"

They ran for it.

Hikari was standing with her hands on her hips, glaring at the two boys. "Have you been on the room ALL this—" her glare softened slightly at Toji's spinning the ball effortless across several fingers: "—time?"

"Well, we—"

Asuka stepped out.

Toji's jaw dropped.

Kensuke stared.

"Y-y-you're the transferee!" he stuttered.

Asuka raised an eyebrow. "Transferee?"

"Yeah, well, the hair," Toji mumbled, trying to demonstrate with his hands.

"Hikari cut it for me," Asuka said proudly.

"Oh really?" Toji leaned forward for a closer look. "She did a nice job."

"I wouldn't have known that you didn't get it professionally cut," Kensuke assured, and Hikari beamed visibly with pride.

They passed the morning in silence listening to renditions of what happened during the Second Impact. But when lunchtime came, the classroom broke into chatter and Asuka looked expectantly to Shinji for her lunch, as she usually did. The Third Child quickly retrieved her bento and placed it on Asuka's desk. She rewarded him with a smile and a "Thanks, Shinji", instead of the usual "it's about time!"

"She's being a lot nicer to you today," Toji commented. "Got something to tell us, Shinji?"

"What?! No!" Shinji exclaimed. Lowering his voice again, he added, "She's been like to almost everyone after we went to go Misato."

"Speaking of Misato-san, how is she?"

Shinji sighed. "Not so great. She's very depressed—even took to smashing furniture. And running out to me after the last angel attack didn't do her any good." Shinji placed his hands on either side of his forehead and propped his elbows up on the desk. "All the doctors seem so pessimistic nowadays..."

Kensuke and Toji exchanged glances. No one knew what to say, so they ate in silence.

* * *

Misato was surprised to see her.

"Rei," she said warmly, turning her head aside to cough. "I didn't expect to see you here."

"I have made a promise to come, and I intend to keep it." She paused. "Furthermore, I like speaking with you, Major Katsuragi."

"Then call me Misato," the Major smiled, genuinely pleased.

Rei nodded.

"You know, I'm very proud of you for sticking up for Shinji against Dr. Akagi, even if she considered it disobeying a direct order."

"I have made a promise to protect Ikari-kun and I intend to keep it as well," Rei explained honestly.

Misato laughed. "You've made a lot of promises, haven't you?"

"Yes."

She was content just being in the presence of the Major—_Misato_, she corrected herself mentally. Rei was not used to people actually liking to have her around—she simply existed, and most people did not question that. But Misato liked her, actually welcomed her and wanted her around. It was a new feeling.

Rei had wondered whether or not to come at all. Perhaps the Major had simply been joking. Or maybe the Major was still critically ill and would not want to speak with her.

Yet here she was, swathed in white sheets, smiling up at the First Child from her abnormally pale face. She didn't have to do this—she could have easily ordered Rei out the very first day. But instead she had asked the girl to come and see her, and she had obviously meant it. Rei had never felt so appreciated in her life.

"I... made you something, Maj—Misato," Rei commented quietly, reaching into her knapsack. The contents of the small translucent plastic container were still warm.

Misato watched interestedly as Rei held it out to her and savored the warmth in her dry hands, peeling off the plastic cover carefully. Inside, arranged in a colorful array, lay a variety of steamed vegetables, glistening in some sort of sauce.

"You made this for me?" Misato asked, incredulous. It had never occurred to her that the First Child cooked, but then again—she lived alone, so who would have cooked for her?

"Yes." Rei produced a pair of chopsticks from her knapsack, wrapped delicately in a pale pink napkin edged with cherry blossoms. "I do not know if Dr. Ishiyama would approve..."

"Too bad for her." Misato plucked a slice of carrot from the bowl. "This is really good, Rei—where'd you learn to cook like this?"

"Ikari-kun prepared this dish for us when I was there, a few weeks ago," Rei replied, internally beaming with pride, "although I have experimented by adding different vegetables as well."

Misato nodded and swallowed hard. "I can't sit here and eat the entire thing myself. Go on, have some yourself."

"No, no," Rei insisted, "I made it for you."

"I can't eat all of it," Misato complained. There was a short pause in which she seemed to be thinking deeply. "All right then, as your commanding officer, I order you to eat."

Rei thought this over, smiling a bit in spite of herself. A long hunt produced a plastic fork from the bottom of her bag. The blue-haired girl picked up a piece of Chinese cabbage and chewed slowly, giving Misato more time to eat.

"So how's school coming?"

Rei paused with her fork mid-air. "We are studying several pre-Impact novels, and in mathematics we are studying derivatives."

"And gym?"

"We have progressed from swimming to track."

"Track," Misato mused. "I never liked that... much more fun to watch Miki racing Kaji—they were the athletes of our year. Miki is short for Namika, Dr. Ishiyama's first name," she explained.

Rei nodded. "I know."

They ate in silence for a while before Misato tired of the quiet and ventured, "So what do you want to do in the future?"

Clearly taken aback, the First Child turned still as a statue and her eyes widened. _No one has ever asked me that before_, she thought. _No one has ever cared_. _I exist only to pilot Eva_.

_But Misato doesn't think so_, she reasoned.

"I don't know," she said finally, looking away.

Misato blinked at this response, but Rei said nothing. She could not tell Misato that she was essentially worthless, that there were a hundred some carbon copies floating in that underground cauldron.

"I would like to go to college someday," she said.

Misato smiled. "Then I hope you go to Tokyo University. Of course they've had to rebuild it many times across the years due to Angel attacks, but I hear it's still a wonderful school."

Rei nodded. Sensei had talked about the greatness of Tokyo University. For the first time, she felt a hope that she would one day be there.

* * *

The days crawled by for Misato, each bringing more misery than the one before. She had read through _Rebecca_ three times. She had followed the affairs of every famous Japanese actress for weeks. And she had received more shots than she had in the rest of her life put together.

Namika had taken her off the oral chemotherapy drugs and instead decided to inject it directly into the space around her spinal cord, explaining that leukemic cells tended to collect around that area. She could bear the needles in her arm, but she could not bear the idea of that needle going into the back of her neck, and it did not get any easier as days went on. Namika continued to maintain that perhaps she would soon go into remission; however, it was clearly becoming apparent that even the doctor was losing hope.

She drifted in and out of sleep nowadays, constantly tired, and feeling relieved that she didn't have to spend energy eating, even if it meant having to keep the line in her arm. Several infections came and went, including a particularly angry red rash that developed across the skin of her chest and shoulders. Several times Rei came to see her and was told that she was asleep; whenever this happened Misato would become angry and subdued and vow to be awake the next time she came.

But she couldn't do it. Occasional high fevers would keep her bedridden and sleepy, barely conscious of what was going on around her. Namika continued to run bone marrow tests that left her feeling achy and sore for weeks at a time. Ritsuko bought her an audio device, similar to Shinji's SDAT, so that she could listen to pre-taped stories instead of having to hold up a book.

October came and passed before a day came when Misato could sit up and enjoy the autumn scene through her window. She had not really been awake to see the Japanese garden at its flowery peak, but she could take pleasure in the shady branches of scarlet maple. Ritsuko came by and opened the window for her so that she could hear the birds chirping.

"I'm not looking forward to winter at all," Misato admitted. "When everything's white and dead... and so _clean_..."

Ritsuko laughed. "None of us do. Except maybe Miki, since mosquitoes are buzzing rampant in summer while carrying all those diseases—and winter kills them off."

She had expected to draw laughter from the Major, but she heard none. Instead, Misato said quietly, "Namika's attitude towards me has changed recently."

"How so?"

"She's so curt," Misato muttered miserably. "Anything I mention to her—any pain, any discomfort—I get a 'we're _trying_, Misato, _be patient _'. I never see her anymore, besides when she's injecting me with more drugs or sucking out more blood." She paused. "So doctor-like, so unfriend-like."

Ritsuko remained facing away, her weight balanced on one leg and the other toe tapping the floor silently as she gazed outside. A small bird landed on a nearby branch and cocked its head, watching her curiously. A moment later it took flight and left the bough quivering. Dr. Akagi sighed and turned away.

"Did you know that yesterday was Miki's birthday?"

"No," Misato was forced to admit, "I didn't."

Ritsuko left the window and sat down in the chair that Rei had occupied days ago. "Too bad. I went to her house yesterday with a cake, but no one was there."

"Where was she?"

The blonde held her companion's gaze firmly. "In the lab, running the latest tests on your blood."

Misato flushed, and Ritsuko continued. "I know Miki's not the sort of person to spoil a patient, but she does care. She just tends not to show it."

The Major nodded, embarrassed that she had been thinking only of herself.

"Hey." Kaji stuck his unshaven face in the doorway and waved a large hand. "Mind if I come in?"

"Kaji!" Misato smiled happily as he strode in and gave her a big bear hug.

Kaji grinned and kissed her on the forehead. "And you." He patted Ritsuko in a friendly fashion on the shoulder. "So, Rit-chan says they've gone and bought you a wig. How does it look?"

Misato reached over and retrieved it from her bedside table. Almost all of her hair had fallen out in the days when she had being severely ill, and Ritsuko and Namika had decided to go ahead and buy a wig for her. Unfortunately, Ritsuko had insisted on being the only blonde and they couldn't find a purple of the same shade as her natural hair. Furthermore, Namika had declared brown too dull and Ritsuko argued vehemently against blue, so they had settled on red. Misato had taken a look at it and tossed it aside. Now she reluctantly lowered it over her head.

Both Ritsuko and Kaji burst into unrestrained laughter; Misato, feeling that she might as well make the best of it, shrugged and gave a lopsided grin.

"You—look—like—" Kaji clutched his sides, laughing furiously: "Asuka—"

He tipped off the chair and rolled on the floor, still laughing. Misato demanded a mirror and Ritsuko, her face intensely red from laughter, produced a small compact from her purse. Misato's eyes widened at the sight of her familiar face framed in a shower of copper curls that made it so utterly unfamiliar even she had to laugh.

"Wait until Asuka hears about this," Kaji wheezed, holding onto his side with one hand as he climbed back onto his chair, only to burst into another fit of laughter. The two women exchanged glances and rolled eyes.

"Yeah, how is she?" Misato asked, eager to draw the attention away from her hair.

"They seem to have bonded pretty well with Makoto," Ritsuko informed her. "Actually, they invited their classmates over a few days ago. Makoto seems to be pretty cool in the children's eyes."

Misato smiled, thinking of how well Kensuke and Makoto would get along. She snapped the compact shut and handed it back to Ritsuko, then tore the wig off her head.

* * *

November saw Misato through yet another bout of chronic illness, this one even more virulent than the last. Doctors hurried in and out of her room in a swish of white lab coats. To Misato, it all seemed as if the scenes were being played in fast-forward. Sometimes Kaji would be there, holding on to her hand. Other times she would be completely alone, either shivering from cold or soaked in her own sweat. Namika changed her to another chemotherapy drug, but the side effects only worsened.

For Shinji and Asuka, this was a time of extreme emotional turmoil and surprisingly, a time of bonding. They did not leave NERV each day until they had pestered the latest news out of Ritsuko, and when they walked home it was often in silence. Makoto, meanwhile, often worked overtime without complaint, so the children were left at home. Asuka took to watching TV late into the night and often falling asleep on the couch. Shinji was left to do homework alone in the bedroom.

Homework rarely stumped him. Shinji was not a dim student, and he liked to have his work done correctly and on time. However, this time he was utterly stumped, so he slid the door open and poked his head out.

"Asuka?"

Perhaps she was still awake; her usual array of talk shows lasted until at least one in the morning. Shinji tiptoed out, clutching the paper between two fingers.

Nope, he was wrong. Her hair was scattered loosely over the pillow and formed a fiery frame for her sleeping face. The lights were on, but the TV volume had been tapered down until it was barely audible.

Her moaning though, was quite audible.

He couldn't make out what she was saying. There were several "m" sounds and a few "s" sounds, or perhaps that was simply a sharp intake of breath. Shinji, who had witnessed her nightmares before, concluded that she was dreaming about her mother again.

_Time to go to bed and leave her be_, his rational mind prodded. But he had barely turned when Asuka flipped over and shrilly cried out, "Don't die!"

The rational voice continued to inform him that he was being an idiot, but regardless, Shinji made his way to her bedside and knelt down, pulling a blanket over her body.

Silence.

Shinji hovered, wanting to make sure that she was okay. Asuka took in shallow, even breaths, her lips just slightly parted. Out of nowhere her face contorted and her hand shot out, grasping, reaching—he heard the blended "m" and "s" sound again—

Without thinking, Shinji put up his hand and let her take hold of it.

Wrong move. She squeezed it tightly, holding it close to herself in such a position that Shinji had to quickly get up and move or risk having his hand torn off. He hesitated, giving her hand just the tiniest squeeze. Her eyes flew open.

"Shinji!"

"Sorry," he apologized quickly, drawing his hand away. "Sorry..."

Asuka looked down and was pleased to find that she was fully dressed. "It's all right. I was dreaming..." She shivered.

"About your mother?" Shinji supplied helpfully.

"No..." Asuka drew her legs closer to her and buried her face in the blanket. "I dreamed that Misato was dying."

This took Shinji by surprise, and he crept closer and sat down beside her on the floor.

"Do you want to talk?" he asked at last.

Asuka revealed her face at last, looking straight ahead. "We were all there," she began shakily. "She just... faded a-away..."

Her voice shook and died. Asuka lay down and turned her face inward so that it faced the back of the couch. "Shinji, what will we do if she dies?"

It was hard for him to believe even that this terrified girl before him was really Sorhyu Asuka Langley, but Shinji did his best to respond. "I don't think she will, Asuka... don't think such thoughts."

"I didn't think I cared so much," Asuka whispered hollowly. "I didn't want to care."

Shinji took some time to reflect. "I didn't want to come," he said at last. "I didn't want to pilot Eva... I had never had anyone care for me before. My father didn't care... the teacher I stayed with treated me like a burden. Misato was the first person who actually, honestly, cared..."

Asuka shut the TV off and hugged her legs to herself. Shinji stood up and hesitated before putting his arms around her tentatively, then quickly drawing away.

"You should get some sleep," he advised. "Are you sure you don't want your room back?"

"No, I'm fine." She slid back down and drew the blanket up to her nose.

Shinji smiled. "Asuka..."

"Hmm?"

There was no doubt in his voice as his spoke.

"Whatever happens, we'll make it through."

* * *

Author's Notes: sort of a weird chapter, hopping through the months, but I really wanted to get this one out (it's been sitting in the depths of my computer for much too long.) I'm hoping to update around once a month from now on...

I know that at some point in one of the flashbacks Fuyutsuki says, "Back then this country still had seasons", but I've decided to add them in anyway for effect.

And thanks to XXXG-00W0 and KenshinNigoki for the tips on Asuka's character – hope she's much better in this one.

Lastly, to jennyjennai—your review touched me in a way that I really can't explain. I'm very glad that everything's all right now and that you've come through it all!

Thanks everyone!


	4. apprehension

December 8: another usual day in bed for Misato, who had finally grown used to her Asuka-like hair. Namika came in to bring her a glass of water and congratulated her, but that was it. No Shinji, no Asuka, no Rei— or even Ritsuko, Misato thought morosely. She passed the morning listening to a recorded version of _Anna Karenina_, occasionally pausing her SDAT when a familiar voice passed by her room. Once or twice she thought she heard Kaji, but he never came in.

She hoped it hadn't been him. If it had been him, well—of all the days not to come by!

Misato gave up hope and drifted off to sleep around noon, waking up at sporadic intervals. Someone came in and removed a piece of equipment but did not speak to her. At four thirty-two, Misato decided that she had slept far more than was necessary, and settled down to celebrate alone.

"Happy birthday to me…"

_Is there any reason to be happy that I'm turning 30?_

"Happy birthday…to me…"

_I wonder if I'll live to see my 31st year?_

"Don't wake her—Dr. Ishiyama said she was asleep."

The door slid open and in came Makoto, hauling an entire drum set on wheels. Upon noticing that the Major was awake and watching him, the technician blushed crimson and muttered, "Ah… uh… guys! She's awake!"

Shigeru strutted into the room, his guitar hanging over his shoulder by a nylon strap. He cleared his throat, glanced to the others for confirmation, and began singing loudly.

"Happy Birthday to you; Happy Birthday to you!"

"Happy Birthday dear Misa—"

"Major," Maya hinted.

"—Major Katsuragi…"

Shigeru drew out the last syllable. "Happy birthday to you!" He strummed out the final chord as Makoto's drumming built to a climax and Maya accented the ending with a delicate _ting_ on her triangle.

Grinning proudly now, Misato clapped eagerly. Makoto began drumming again with newfound confidence. Shigeru quickly jumped in, but their rhythms did not match and Maya was soon begging them to stop.

The presents began to shower upon her. Ritsuko had bought her a pair of crystal earrings and Maya an elegant gold locket. Namika demanded upon inspecting all presents after Kaji attempted to sneak in a case of beer, crudely disguised as perfume.

"It was just a joke," he complained peevishly as the doctor dumped everything into the trash.

"Not a very funny one," she assured him.

Misato was having a grand time when Asuka and Shinji pushed their way into the room, followed closely by Rei. All three were dressed in school uniforms and had apparently come over directly after class. Shinji was carrying a white frosted cake, and Rei was balancing a large rectangular box in her arms.

Somebody fetched a knife and Shinji sliced the cake, handing the first slice to Misato. Namika, however, was quick to intervene.

"But _Miki_," Misato groaned, "it's my birthday!"

The doctor exchanged a look with Ritsuko, relented, and allowed Misato a few bites. Namika got the next slice, then Ritsuko, and finally Kaji. Rei declined, and Asuka had only a small piece.

"So what's in that box?" Kaji muttered through a mouthful of cake. He turned his head to the side and swallowed hard. Ritsuko shot him a dirty look and exchanged an exasperated smile with the other doctor.

Rei set down her cake and gently tore off the binding tape to reveal a case stuffed with foam peanuts.

_I wish I could have opened it myself,_ Misato thought sadly, _too bad there's no way I can reach the box, and there's no way it would fit on my lap.._.

The First and Third Children held the cardboard flaps open while the Second reached in to pull out an elegant stained-glass lamp, furnished with a slender brass stem to hold up the lampshade.

"Originally we were going to just buy you a lamp," Shinji explained, "but we couldn't find anything that was pretty, so we ended up making our own lampshade."

"You _made _this?!"

She rotated it around slowly in her hands and saw that her name was embedded into the bottom edge with fragments of purple glass. The rest of the cover consisted of a background made from pure white pieces of glass, with branching greenery and yellow glass flowers positioned neatly in between.

"Where'd you guys learn to do this?" she asked.

Both Shinji and Asuka deferred to the quiet one: "Rei."

"You taught them how to do this?" Misato stammered. "Where'd you come up with the idea for this?" She spun it in her hands again. "It's lovely…"

"The idea came to me after I noticed that you did not have a lamp in your room," Rei said modestly. Ritsuko bristled and made as if she wished to speak with Namika, but Rei simply continued and did not give her the chance. "I am very happy that you are pleased, Misato."

_Did she really just place a tiny accent on that last word?_ Ritsuko pondered, but let it go.

"We definitely couldn't have done it without Wondergirl's help," Asuka assured Misato. "Here, let's plug it in."

Misato threw out her arms and drew all three Children into a tight hug as the room burst into light.

"What would I do without you guys?"

* * *

She guarded those memories fiercely over the next few days, feeling a warm sensation of happiness break over her every time she turned on the lamp and filled the room with illuminated flowers. They cared about her; they loved her, and that was enough to keep Misato going.

But only two days later the Major was again listening to _Anna Karenina_ when she unconsciously reached up to scratch an itchy spot on her neck, exactly where Maya's locket rested. _No… _surely she was imagining it. With her hands shaking, Misato reached into the top drawer of her wooden bedside table and drew out a compact mirror, anxiously flipping it open.

It was there. An angry red rash, spreading from the area under the locket as if being egged on by some invisible flame.

Misato threw the compact back into the drawer and quickly closed it. She picked up her SDAT and lay flat, breathing heavily. She knew by now, from past experience, that the first sign of a major infection was usually the rash.

She felt for the clasp of the necklace and fumbled with it, but her fingers were clammy and kept slipping off the slender metal hooks. A few moments passed before the necklace came free and she tossed it aside as if it were on fire.

She forced herself to calm down.

_It's probably just a reaction from the locket_.

_That doesn't quite make sense though_, she thought. _I've worn gold earrings and stuff before and had no adverse reactions._

Perhaps the alloy was different from what she had worn before?

That made more sense.

She heard Namika's voice passing by her room and considered asking her to take a look at it, but the thought of more needles and side effects drove that idea away.

_It's just the locket_, Misato convinced herself. _So I'll just quit wearing it… and it'll all be fine_. She retrieved the necklace from the other end of the table and dropped it into a drawer, sliding it shut before replacing her earphones and depressing the play button on her SDAT.

* * *

"Thanks."

"What?"

"Thanks for agreeing to go through this," Asuka murmured quietly.

Shinji looked at her quizzically. She shook her head and looked away. Pen-pen gave her a curious look.

It had been her idea to move back to Misato's apartment. Surprisingly, it had not taken long to win The Commander's approval (after all, the First managed alone; why couldn't the Second and Third?). Telling Hyuga-san had been harder. Ritsuko took it upon herself to break the news to him, stressing that he had done nothing wrong, just that the Children would like to be back home. Even so, the technician was gloomily quiet as he pulled into the parking spot beside Misato's old blue car.

He got out of the car without looking at either of them and popped open the trunk. Shinji followed and quickly made to take out the boxes. Asuka, feeling as if she were living in some sort of a morbid haze, was the last out of the car.

"Let me carry that," Hyuga-san offered. Shinji shook his head vehemently.

"No, no, it's fine—I can handle it."

_I'm not doing my part_, Asuka thought. She circled the car slowly and took one of the boxes in her hand. A large strip of masking tape held it closed and bore the words _Andenken von Deutschland._

_How long ago it seems, that I packed this box_. _I never even bothered to open it_.

"I think that's it—Shinji, are you sure you don't want any help?"

"Yes; err—thank you, Hyuga-san."

Asuka could almost feel invisible fingers of etiquette prodding her in the back; quickly she added, "Thank you."

"_Wark_," Pen-pen chimed in.

"You're both very welcome." He lifted a hand in brief farewell. "Feel free to come back at any time."

Shinji took three boxes and Asuka took two, both declining to have the technician walk upstairs with them. The elevator ride was silent, and when it stopped Shinji balanced his boxes on one knee in order to free up a hand so that he could open the door.

"It's so quiet," Asuka whispered as the door slid open.

The apartment was in disarray, as almost three months had passed since anyone had inhabited its rooms. The boxes that Asuka had left half-packed were still strewn across the hallway. A thick layer of dust covered the tabletop.

It took them some time to get settled in again. Shinji locked the door behind them and Asuka opened the windows to let in some fresh air; Pen-pen _warked _loudly until Shinji found him a can of beer. They turned on the TV purely for the sake of having some noise to break the dead silence, ignoring the fact that only soap operas were on.

Asuka wiped down the tabletops while Shinji decided not to go shopping, for which she was glad. She didn't want to be left alone for any reason. They ate pancakes since the only thing Shinji could find was a box of dry pancake mix. Neither touched the beer. Neither spoke for the most part, either; the only sound was of Pen-pen drinking his beer eagerly. Hyuga-san had not been an avid drinker and Pen-pen had dearly missed his beer.

Nighttime was a different issue. Asuka had looked forward to sleeping in her own bed again, but now she could not rely on TV to tire her to the point where she could fall asleep as soon as all was quiet. Instead the redhead lay awake, shivering beneath her cold blankets.

The heat came unexpectedly to life with only a soft growl before dying to a faint hum, but it was one that nevertheless made her jump. _I shouldn't be scared of such stupid things_, Asuka admonished herself, _seriously, what am I turning into?_

She wondered if Shinji was asleep.

Asuka drew the blankets up to her nose and pulled her legs up closer to her body, rubbing her cold feet. Maybe she ought to open the window; a little noise might help her to settle down—the quietudeof her once-familiar room was now altogether much too eerie.

The Second Child walked to the window, rubbing her arms as she did so. Tokyo-3 was still alight outside; many buildings continued to cast soft glows of yellow light from their curtainless windows. The grove of trees beneath her had been reduced to a gray smudge in the darkness. Asuka tilted her head, looking for the NERV building, where Misato was residing.

_You don't belong there, Misato…you belong here, at home…_

The window wouldn't budge, and all Asuka got for her efforts were cold hands. However, instead of clambering back into bed, Asuka picked up her blankets, sheets, and pillow and tiptoed over to Shinji's room.

She slid the door open an inch and whispered, "Shinji… are you still awake?"

No response.

Asuka let herself in and closed the door silently behind her. Shinji lay facing the wall, his shape only vaguely distinguishable under the thick blanket. The girl threw her cargo to the ground and spread out the sheet on the floor.

_I really must be going crazy_.

But nevertheless, she lay down, drew the blanket over her shivering body, and slept better than she had in weeks.

* * *

She was awakened hours later by the sunlight streaming in through the frozen windowpanes. Asuka stretched, realized it was cold, and quickly retracted her arms. It took her a moment to remember where she was.

She hadn't remembered the floor being so soft…

Asuka propped herself up on her elbows and realized, to her horror, that she was in Shinji's bed.

Fortunately, Shinji was not also in it.

She looked to her right and saw that Shinji was fast asleep on the floor, under her blanket and pillow.

"What the hell?"

Shinji shifted, muttering something indistinguishable, and she quickly said nothing more. Asuka remembered that her clothes were still in their cardboard box and hurried to find some warm clothing. After a warm shower she felt sufficiently awake and headed to the kitchen.

There really was nothing but beer and pancakes. Asuka pushed all the alcohol away impatiently and uncovered a loaf of bread, only to find it crusted with blue mold. In disgust, she flung it into the trashcan and scrubbed her hands viciously over the sink despite the fact that they had only come in contact with the plastic wrap.

_I guess I'll have to make pancakes again… and we'll drink water._

Shinji walked in just as she was getting flustered at having burned three in a row.

"Here, let me do it," he murmured, suppressing an enormous yawn, "don't flip it just yet, give it a minute more—"

"But then it burns," Asuka complained, removing her spatula and frowning at the batter that remained stuck to the metal surface. Shinji took it gently from her hands, wiped off the batter, and flipped it over perfectly. The moist side sizzled in the heat.

"Hey," Asuka asked, "why was I in your bed last night?"

"Well… you were cold as an icicle on the floor after having kicked your blanket off, and I figured that my bed was probably a lot more comfortable than the floor."

"That doesn't explain _how_ I got into _your _bed though."

Shinji blushed. "I…er…put you there."

"You WHAT?"

"S-sorry…" Shinji turned away, his head lowered.

Asuka thought about it and shook her head with a sigh. "You're forgiven. Or maybe I should be thanking you for it. Your bed is a lot nicer than the floor."

She shook her head again and left the kitchen. Shinji gave the pancake a final flip to make sure that both sides were sufficiently cooked and slid it onto a plate, all the while pondering this change in his roommate. _Only a few weeks ago she would have killed me for doing what I did…_

He smiled to himself as he turned off the heat.

* * *

"Morning, Misato."

"Hey." The Major didn't turn her head. "What's the date?"

"December 16. Why?"

"Lost track of the days."

Namika frowned a little at this. "Is something wrong?"

"No."

"Misato—look at me."

Slowly, as if it took great effort, Misato turned to face the doctor, revealing her flushed face. Namika took caution in keeping the worry out of her expression as she placed a hand to Misato's forehead.

"I'm going to take your temperature, just in case," she explained smoothly, fumbling for an electronic thermometer in one of the lower drawers of Misato's bedside table. Several anxious moments passed while they waited for a reading.

"It's not very high," Namika commented. Her comment failed to draw any sort of response from the patient. "You haven't been experiencing any other symptoms, have you?"

_The locket_.

There was no point in hiding it longer. Misato undid the first button of her hospital gown to reveal the rash, which now had spread to cover an area about the size of her hand. Namika's eyes widened considerably.

"How long have you had that?" she demanded.

"About a week…"

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I thought it was just from the locket Maya gave me."

Namika groaned.

Misato sighed and braced herself for another round of treatments.

* * *

Kaji was driving from Nagoya back to Tokyo-3, his third such trip in two days. Of course, he would have much rather flown, but these choices were never for him to make. At least they allowed _him_ to drive; there were few things Kaji hated more than security officers following him about. He took the beachside road and drank in the seascape as the car droned down the narrow road. A small sigh escaped his lips as he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

His cell phone rang. Kaji wondered briefly whether or not to answer it.

"Ah, why not."

It was Ritsuko, explaining that Misato had gone unexpectedly into a coma.

The car swerved. Kaji earned himself a loud beep and a string of colorful language from the driver behind him as he shouted into the phone.

"We don't know yet!" Ritsuko yelled, so that he could hear her over the noise.

Kaji pulled over. The angered driver behind him stopped momentarily to shake a fist in his face before taking off in a storm of dust. He concentrated on shifting his attention back to Misato, but couldn't find anything to say.

That was, besides the one thing he didn't want to ask.

"Is she going to live?"

It was a long time before Ritsuko answered. "Miki says it's still too early to tell."

Kaji cursed in German and thought he heard a sharp intake of breath on Ritsuko's end as he pulled back into the driving lane.

"Just get back here soon, will you?" Ritsuko's mechanically modified voice echoed in his head. "The Children are near inconsolable."

"I'm not surprised," Kaji replied.

Two hundred and sixty kilometers away, Ritsuko slowly put down the phone and temporarily rested her head against the doorframe of Namika's office. It was white and ridged, simplistic yet stylish. Ritsuko remembered the time she had thought Misato's blood had a whitish tinge on her hand. She backed away from the door.

She knew that Namika was furious with herself for letting the situation fly out of her hands. The doctor was now constantly hovering over Misato's bedside, fiddling with the various tubes that were currently keeping her alive. In the few hours since the Major had lost consciousness, she had received several blood transfusions to bring up her low blood counts.

Ritsuko had taken care of informing Shinji and Asuka, both of whom had been at school and quite willing to skip the rest of classes to come over. However, as there wasn't particularly anything they could do to help, they were temporarily ordered to stay at school. Either she or Kaji would spend the night at Misato's apartment with them.

Makoto and Aoba had been shocked, the former more so than the latter. Maya had completely fallen to pieces and insisted that the entire ordeal was her fault.

"If only I had known, I would never have given her that necklace…" she sobbed. Medical knowledge could only comfort her to a nominal degree; regardless of Ritsuko's efforts to explain that her necklace had not caused the rash, Maya was not convinced.

But outside of their private worlds, NERV continued to function. The Commander had displayed no emotion when Ritsuko had informed him of the situation—not that she had expected him to. His sole interest was that the progress of NERV not falter under these unexpected circumstances, and so the workers continued their construction. Testing continued as best as the technicians could manage. Ritsuko herself could hardly manage to keep her composure during the long hours she spent in the Geofront, and ran down to the hospital as often as she dared.

Kaji arrived at NERV within the hour, having apparently driven Misato-style for the remainder of the journey.

"Where are Shinji and Asuka?" he muttered glumly.

"Still at school," Ritsuko replied, checking her watch. The Commander would not stand for her being away for long. "Do you mind staying with them tonight?"

"That's fine. Look at me, Rit-chan—" he grasped her around the shoulders so that she was facing him— "how bad is it, really?"

"If she can survive this weekend…" Ritsuko looked away for a split second. Kaji shook her lightly. "…she'll have a much improved chance."

* * *

Asuka was angry, very angry, even given the Second Child's usual temper.

"WHY won't they let us see her?" she raged, ignoring the crowd that was gathering around her. "It's not like we've done anything important in school since I've gotten here!"

Hikari tried to console her, but she shook her friend off and pushed her way through the crowd, disappearing into a grove of leafless trees.

The class rep watched her anxiously, then shook her head and looked for Shinji. He was seated under a tree some distance away from the group of girls, accompanied by Kensuke and Toji. She felt a familiar thrill at the sight of the latter, but pushed it away. Now was not the time.

She knew Major Katsuragi, obviously not as well as Asuka, Shinji and Rei did, but she did consider her a nice woman. The thought that she was tottering on the edge of death made distressed Hikari greatly.

"And so close to Christmas too…"

If only there were something she could do. Hikari could cook and console, but she could not cure leukemia. The class rep sighed.

She was the last thing on Asuka's mind as the Second continued to force her way through the woods, completely oblivious of the bare branches that clawed at her skirt. _Anger does not begin to describe how I feel_, she thought furiously, forcing herself to breathe. The initial anger at Dr. Akagi had faded somewhat, and was instead replaced by a fresher, brighter hatred for whatever mystical power had brought this fate upon them.

She plowed on for some distance, wanting to get away from the noise of her schoolmates. _How petty of them, to moan like that about boys and clothes_. Asuka's hands clenched into fists. _Why US? Why Misato?_

There were no answers to her questions.

Asuka pounded her fist into a nearby oak, but the great tree responded only with silence. The girl slowly tipped her head back, squinting at the sky—it was not quite definable as "sunny", but nevertheless hard for her to look at with her eyes fully open. A large black bird took wing from a bare branch above her. Asuka shook her head, closing her eyes tightly and refusing to open them for fear that the inevitable tears wouldcome.

Slowly she slid down to the ground and sat at the foot of the tree, leaning against its coarse bark, cold and withered with age.

"Arrrgh…"

Asuka opened her eyes. Her eyelashes were crusted with teardrops.

She hugged her folded legs to her body, the anger dissipating quickly, but immediately being replaced by feelings she couldn't quite describe. Feelings she hated. Feelings that she had trampled down deep inside her and plastered away behind a concrete wall because she never wanted to feel them again.

Feelings that had coursed through her the day her mother died.

She felt like a little girl again.

Asuka groaned, angry with herself now, but unable to stop the droplets of worry and anguish that fell from her blue eyes.

_I…I'm the best of the Eva pilots;_ she thought. _I have the highest grades in the class. I've broken eight school swimming records since I arrived here._

_But none of that will save Misato_.

_I can't do anything_.

How she wished at that moment, that leukemia existed in the form of a huge angel. She would have dearly loved to stamp upon it, fire upon it, rip it to pieces. But she had no power against tiny malignant cells.

Something crackled behind her. Asuka turned instinctively in the direction of the noise. Had somebody come for her? Hikari?

"Better not be Shinji…" She raked a sleeve across her damp eyes.

It wasn't Shinji. It was a squirrel, apparently trying to decide whether or not she would hurt him if he attempted to cross in front of her. It hesitated for some time, studying the girl with his beady black eyes, then flew across the ground and was gone in a flash.

Reluctantly, Asuka rose to her feet and brushed the dirt off of the back of her skirt. Her feet carried her without instructions from her mind, and her hand moved instinctively some fifteen minutes later to open the doorknob. The teacher paused midsentence as every head in the class swung in her direction.

Asuka did not meet any of their eyes as she quietly shut the door behind her and took her seat.

* * *

Shinji was silent the entire way home, which was quite usual for him. However, Asuka was also silent, and that he did not find normal; nevertheless, he didn't question her behavior. Their cell phones had rung again just as they stepped out of the school—it was Ritsuko, again, to tell them that they were to head directly home and not to take the train to NERV. When Asuka protested weakly, Ritsuko informed her that the next day would be Saturday and that they would be free to visit Misato then.

They did not speak on the train either. Shinji sat to Asuka's right and held his bag close while Asuka let hers dangle loosely from her hand by one of its straps, the majority of the weight resting on the floor of the train.

Kaji was waiting for them at the door, his face set in hard lines that betrayed the severity of the situation. Asuka ignored him and went directly to her room.

"Kaji?"

"Yes, Shinji?"

_I can trust him not to lie to me_, Shiniji thought sadly, as he broached the topic with caution. "How bad is it?"

"Very bad." Kaji coaxed him out of the doorway so that he could shut and lock the door. "I'm not going to lie to you, Shinji…they're not sure if she'll even make it through the weekend."

He watched as Shinji thought this over.

Asuka, meanwhile, had busied herself piling up all the furniture against the door, more because she needed something to do than to avoid Shinji and Kaji. Mental exercises such as algebra problems wouldn't do. She needed something physical to do.

When that was over with, she flopped herself onto her bed and lay down.

"Why…"

_Why did she have to get sick? She can't die now…she's much too young…_

_Mama died when she was not much older than Misato is now._

_She's still too young to die…_

_Do you consider Misato better than your mother, then?_

"No," Asuka whispered defiantly, "she's not better than my mother, she'll never be my mother."

Silence.

_Why do I care? She's not my mother._

Asuka buried her face into her pillow and refused to breathe, because she knew that when she did it would come out as a choking cry.

_I promised myself, when I came here, that I wouldn't grow attached to anyone here. For me, there is only Kaji; for me, there is only Deutschland. _

_But I broke that promise… I let Misato in… and Shinji, argh…baka Shinji…_

She pressed the pillow closer to her face.

_Air_, her lungs reminded her, _air…_

Shinji and Kaji winced simultaneously as the loud, heartbreaking sob echoed from Asuka's room.

* * *

She woke before dawn the next morning, her eyes reddened and swollen. It was cold, and she made no effort to get out of the bed. Her gaze fell on the German calendar hanging from the edge of her windowsill. It was December 21.

_Winter vacation has begun, _she realized. _I didn't even say goodbye to Hikari on the last day of school._

She remembered Christmases in Germany. By this time, Kaji would have set up a magnificent tree—Christmas trees were a German tradition, after all—and he would sit back and let her decorate it, with the aid of a ladder.

"_Don't you think this one would look so pretty up near the top, Kaji-kun?"_

"_Hm… I think it looks better off the to side."_

_Little Asuka, not aged more than eight years old, climbed to the top of the ladder and stood on tiptoe to place the glass star where she saw fit. The ladder toppled over, throwing her into Kaji, who in turn fell into the Christmas tree. The tree broke in half and Kaji was very sore for some days, but Asuka was unhurt and had even managed to guard her precious star ornament_.

Asuka smiled dryly, the magic of that moment gone. Her expression changed dramatically as she thought of Misato. The Second Child leapt out of bed and ran to the window, searching half-heartedly for the familiar NERV building, as she had secretly done every night.

She looked at the mass of furniture stacked against her door and sighed. Well, she wasn't going to get more sleep anyway; might as well start taking it down—unless she wanted to exit her room through the window. Asuka found a jacket to keep herself warm and got to work. When everything was finally back where it belonged, she slowly slid open the door and took a step into the dark hallway.

"_Wark!"_

"Pen-pen?"

She got a disgruntled penguin sneeze in return. "What are you doing here?"

Had the apartment been sufficiently lit, she would have seen Pen-pen throw her a disgusted look before waddling off to find somewhere else to sleep.

She saw the reason for his discomfort a few moments later. The light was on in the kitchen, and she could hear water boiling—the stove, after all, was not far from his usual sleeping place.

"Kaji-kun?"

He was dressed loosely, in an old university t-shirt and overly large pants. Asuka noticed dark circles under his eyes as he turned to greet her without a smile.

She edged closer for a better view. "You're making German dumplings."

"Tradition," he muttered shortly.

Asuka smiled wryly in spite of herself, temporarily lost in the past. "Yeah, you always made them for breakfast…"

"Yeah." He dipped his fingers into a small bowl of flour and spread the residue over the countertop. "Made them for Katsuragi too, some years ago."

"Oh."

The conversation died then, as Kaji was clearly not eager to speak. Asuka stayed for a few moments longer, watching him drop the raw dumplings into the hot water. She cast a glance toward the oven's clock; it was not quite six.

Shinji did not wake until seven-thirty, by which time Asuka had forced herself to complete most of her homework (a task that had been made much more pleasant by Kaji's dumplings, which were every bit as delectable as she remembered). The Third Child greeted his roommates gloomily before disappearing quickly into the bathroom to shower. Kaji made sure that he ate his share of the dumplings, and then the three set off for NERV.

As was custom, Shinji entered from the left side of the car and seated himself in the back. Kaji settled himself into the driver's seat, and Asuka chose to sit as his side. Shinji stole frequent glances at her and noticed that she did not fawn over the older man as usual, but laid her head against the window and stared out into the cold environment.

* * *

He tried to convince himself that she was just sleeping. At any moment, her eyes would register the slightest bit of movement and their guardian would jump out of bed, exclaiming, "I knew it! Admit it, you've liked Asuka all this time!"

But this was no prank. Misato did not sleep in such—well, decent positions.

Shinji glanced at Asuka. Her eyes were downcast and focused on her toes. He turned his gaze instead to the lamp they had made for her. It was off now, the pieces of glass dark from lack of light.

The doctor stepped in, temporarily breaking the silence to place Kaji's bouquet of flowers on her bedside table. Kaji nodded briefly in thanks and smoothed a lock of hair away from Misato's face. His earlier words echoed in Shinji's head.

_I'm not going to lie to you, Shinji…they're not sure if she'll even make it through the weekend._

Misato had been here many times for him before, when he had been unconscious after battles, but this was the first time he had had to sit by her side and wonder if she would ever open her eyes again. Only now did he truly understand what his guardian had been through.

It suddenly occurred to him that Misato was not much older than his mother at the time of her death.

_She's been like a mother to us_.

Asuka would not have shared that point of view, he thought, turning slightly to look at the girl again. Her eyes remained focused on Misato's expressionless face, but held just a faint trace of dampness.

Kaji reached over and turned on the light, casting a soft glow on Misato's face.

"Looks better that way, don't you think?"

Neither pilot answered him.

They left the lamp on when they left, at Asuka's request.

* * *

On day two of winter break Shinji awoke early to the sound of feminine chattering in the kitchen. Hikari was here and had brought a large platter of sugar cookies fresh from the oven. Each cookie had been cut into the shape of a Christmas tree, a heart, or a star, then sprinkled with colored sugar.

"Ikari!" Hikari greeted him.

"Hi, Miss Horaki," he mumbled, not quite wanting to face the girl. Quickly he disappeared into the kitchen, not noticing Hikari's crestfallen look.

"Oh, don't bother with him," Asuka muttered. "He's just… been off recently."

"Because of Miss Katsuragi?" Hikari guessed, and Asuka's eyes clouded over. "Asuka…I know you're very hurt and all, but shouldn't you be feeling more considerate towards him since you know what he's going through?"

"I guess," she mumbled.

Hikari took a cookie and bit into it, chewing thoughtfully. "Asuka, if you'd rather I not be here intruding, I can go home at any time. I don't want to inconvenience you, especially so early in the morning."

"No." For a moment Asuka was almost tempted to reach out and grab Hikari's arm, but held herself back. "Damn it, Hikari, you're the only person in this place who's not moping. Shinji's barely spoken in the last few days, and Kaji, well, given the relationship he and Misato had, you can imagine how he's reacting…"

The door to Misato's room slid open and Asuka colored a bit, expecting a light reprimanding from Kaji for having spoken about his love life behind his back.

"Kaji-kun—"

"It's not Kaji," a feminine voice said. Ritsuko Akagi ran a hand through her blonde hair, already neat and groomed. "Hello, Miss Horaki."

Asuka blinked as Hikari jumped to her feet and bowed. "Dr. Akagi."

"Kaji said he would be staying with Misato and coming back sometime in the night, so we were not to wait for him," the Second protested weakly.

"Yes, and he's finally gone home to get some sleep, so I'm taking over for the time being," she replied curtly before entering the kitchen. "Morning, Shinji."

"M-morning, Dr. Akagi."

"Ritsuko'll do outside of NERV." She poured herself a cup of coffee and drank deeply. "Finished your homework yet?"

"Er…not quite…"

Asuka turned slowly to look at Hikari, her eyes wide with astonishment.

_How can she be doing this?_ she wondered silently, watching Ritsuko go about the kitchen as if she owned everything. _As if everything was just fine._

Pen-pen warked, and Asuka half-heartedly tossed him half a cookie.

Hikari stood up and gracefully pushed in her chair. "I should probably be getting home now, since Nozomi and Kodama will be awake soon." She reached across the table to hug Asuka. "Take care."

* * *

Today was by far the most miserable day of Shinji's life—at least that he could remember—and that was saying a lot. He sighed and glanced down at his incomplete work, a mumbo-jumble of numbers of terms that seemed quite incomprehensible to him now. Shinji's gaze fell upona single digit, a roughly penned 3.

_3 whats? 3 meters, 3 yard, 3 miles? 3 train stops from here to NERV?_

It didn't matter. Shinji sighed and put down his pencil.

Nothing had happened all day. The Third Child remembered one dreadful experience when Eva-01 lay prostrate upon the ground, waiting for the Angel to crush it. Thissuspense was not all that different, Shinji thought. He could not help fully expecting the worst, and had nearly lost it when a few hours ago the phone had begun to ring.

He had been sitting at the dinner table and Asuka lying on the couch, studying the ceiling. The Third's hands clenched into fists, nails digging into his palm, while the Second turned her face away to avoid looking at the doctor.

Dr. Akagi answered it, and they watched nervously for any body gestures that might hint about the nature of the call. There were none.

When it was over, the blonde simply replaced the receiver, sighed, and moved out of the room. The two pilots looked at each other.

Shinji, feeling a small bubble of hope, said quietly, "No news is good news, right?"

Asuka glared at him before climbing reluctantly off the sofa and disappearing into her room. Wondering what he'd done wrong this time, Shinji retired to his room as well and decided to start his homework. He did not wish to have Dr. Akagi reprimanding him for low grades.

Through the door he heard a door slam and Dr. Akagi call, "Where are you going, Asuka?"

"Out," the Second called, and Shinji heard the door shut.

Shinji placed his head on the table and covered his ears, hoping that Dr. Akagi would not come into his room despite the closed door. It occurred to him that perhaps Asuka had taken a leaf out of his book and was running away, at least for the time being, even if it was only to Hikari's.

Some time later Shinji rose from his chair and made his way to the window, only to see Asuka's red hair standing out against the white snow. She had both hands tucked in her pockets and was walking away from the building at a steady rate.

He wondered where she was going.

* * *

"Excuse us."

Asuka moved woodenly over and the middle-aged lady stepped in front of her, pulling a young child by the hand. The boy was shouting off a long list of the items he wanted for Christmas, and his mother hastened to tell him not to make a scene.

_Maybe I shouldn't have come_, Asuka thought. _It's too cheery here_.

Contrary to what Shinji thought, she had not been running away to Hikari's. Some twenty minutes after leaving the apartment, Asuka had found herself in the middle of the local shopping district, with no idea how she had arrived. The Second leaned against the wall of a candy shop and watched the shoppers, arms laden with variously sized packages, file past her. Some sang Christmas carols or hummed to themselves as they moved, and others paused from time to time to admire all the decorations that the stores had put up. Most of the snow had either melted from all the footsteps or was becoming increasingly dirty. Every once in awhile a car would drive by and splash the shoppers with muddy water.

She blended into the crowd and traveled within it for some time before coming to a stop in front of a clothing store. Asuka pushed open the door and entered.

Her movements caused a medley of small bells hung above the door to begin ringing, and the clerk looked up with a smile. Asuka recognized her as the one who, so many months ago, had told her that she looked lovely in the dress Hikari had pressured her to buy.

"May I help you?"

"No," Asuka glanced over her shoulder and was relieved to see that her item of choice was still here. "I know what I'm here for."

"Oh." The lady looked slightly taken aback. "Are you sure you wouldn't like any help?"

And then Asuka realized it. The woman didn't remember her as the proud _adult _that had come here to shop so many days ago. Her short hair and sad eyes were making her look younger than she had expected. Instead of making her stronger, Misato's ordeal had changed her into a _child_. The clerk was seeing her as a child.

"Yes, I'm very sure," Asuka stated, and stepped around her, making her way directly to the rack. Once there, she paused for a moment to regain her composure.

It was still there, the maroon dress that she had tried on last summer, the price slashed for the holiday season but still hovering at a handsome sum. Asuka slipped it off the hanger and brought it to the register.

One of the benefits of being a NERV pilot was that she received a generous salary; after all, mankind's survival depended on them. Asuka drew out her wallet from a pocket on the inside of her jacket and handed over her credit card. The clerk wished her a Merry Christmas as she left the store with her purchase in a seasonal bag.

She took her time getting home. She had her cell phone, after all, and they could easily reach her if there was an angel attack. Asuka clenched her free hand into a fist, trying to retain as much warmth as she could.

She paused a short distance away from the apartment building, recalling fond memories as the cherry tree came into sight.

It was bare now, its branches empty and forlorn, but Asuka made her way over to it, her footsteps leaving even prints in the snow. The last time that she had stopped to see this tree, she had spent the day insulting Misato over every little aspect of her life. The memory made Asuka blush with shame and guilt, and she turned away, promising herself mentally that as soon as it bloomed, she would bring Misato a large sprig of the flowers.

* * *

"I can't believe we're doing homework on Christmas Eve."

The doorbell rang, cutting off her rant.

Asuka and Shinji glanced at each other across the table at which they were collaborating on a science project.

"Can't be anything bad, they'd call us if it was," Asuka said cryptically. Shinji thought this over and went to open the door.

"Ayanami!"

Asuka jumped out of her chair as Rei stepped in, wearing a faded brown coat that was much too large for her. Ice crystals glistened in her hair.

"Do you… do you want a change of clothes?" she blurted, as Rei removed her snow-caked shoes. _Did I really just say that? I offered Wondergirl MY clothes?_

"I would appreciate that very much," Rei stated calmly, "if it would not inconvenience you, Pilot Sorhyu."

"Uh, yeah," Asuka mumbled. "My room's this way."

She fetched Rei a towel and made her way back to the main room after showing the First Child to her room. Shinji was idling, waiting for them to come back.

"That was really nice of you," he said quietly.

Asuka bristled. "Now don't be getting all mushy on me, Third Child… she was wet, was I supposed to let her freeze?" She dwelled awhile on some random thought. "I wonder what's in her bag?"

"I don't know…" Shinji stared at the wet backpack, the one she carried to school and back every day. It was zipped tightly and gave no hint of its contents.

The owner appeared a moment later, dressed in an overly large shirt that read "_Ich bin Stolz, Deutsch zu sein_" and a pair of Asuka's old jeans. It appeared that she had selected the oldest and most frayed clothes, not wanting to be an inconvenience.

"Oh, honestly, Wondergirl…" Asuka ran off to her room, muttering, "It's not like I'll kill you if you borrow some clothes."

Shinji tried to strike up a conversation.

"Umm…what's in your bag?"

Rei responded by plucking out three packages of different sizes; one was wrapped in blue paper, one red, and one purple. Shinji felt an uneasy situation at what he knew was coming, but Asuka had saved him from having to speak.

"Put these on, Wondergirl… and what are you doing?"

"I have brought Christmas presents," Rei stated matter-of-factly. "And thank you for lending me these clothes, Pilot Sorhyu."

Asuka glanced over Rei's shoulder at Shinji, as if to ask, "Did you know about this?"

Shinji shook his head furiously and held up both hands as if to say, "What are we going to do?"

"Well, seeing as we haven't got a tree…" Asuka's sentence drifted off. Her gaze fell on the leafy plant beside the entrance to the kitchen. "Well, it's not the most convenient place, but… do you want to place them there?"

Rei did so, and Shinji quickly followed her, saying, "You really shouldn't have done this, Ayanami—we—we're—"

"It is customary to give presents at Christmastime, is it not?" she countered quietly.

"Yes, well…" Shinji blushed.

Asuka's mind was spinning. Within the last minute, Wondergirl had showed up, brought her presents, and she had given Wondergirl her clothes. Now a new worry faced her: amidst all the recent angst, she had not put any thought into Christmas presents.

"Erm… would you like to stay for dinner?" Shinji invited.

Rei rose to her feet. "I shall not inconvenience you further," she insisted, turning to Asuka. "Thank you again for the clothing."

"Hey, you can't go now," Asuka found herself protesting. "It's… it's dark outside. You'll get mugged or something. And it's cold."

The door opened behind Asuka and Dr. Akagi stepped out, buttoning up the front of her jacket as she did so. She stiffened upon encountering Rei, who simply focused on her with large red eyes.

"I'm going to the hospital and probably won't be back until late," she warned them. "There's money on the table. Order something if you'd like."

Shinji turned to Rei as the door shut. "See, you won't be of any inconvenience—I won't have to cook extra or anything."

Rei glanced toward the door, thinking of Dr. Akagi. She would not like to meet the doctor on her way home. She accepted Shinji's invitation.

Asuka found the number of a local restaurant and made the call. Less than fifteen minutes later, the doorbell rang.

"Technology sure is fast these days," Asuka commented.

They ate in silence, punctuated only occasionally with a comment about school. Asuka grumbled about the lack of swim classes in winter and to her surprise, Rei commented quietly that she did too. For a moment Asuka was temporarily taken aback by her courage to speak, then remembered the times that Rei had beaten her in the pool and chose to remain silent while she tried to decide what to do. Instead she lowered her head and stabbed at a piece of pork with her chopsticks. Rei had chosen the vegetarian course and seemed to be enjoying it. Shinji had chosen somewhat of a mix between the two girls' choices.

He finished first and excused himself for a moment, leaving Asuka and Rei alone. Surprisingly, it was the latter who spoke first.

"Have you been to visit Misato recently?"

Asuka stabbed at her food miserably. "Yeah. It was really hard to see her like that." She turned away, annoyed at herself for showing weakness.

"When did you go?"

"Two, maybe three days ago?"

"I see."

The conversation died abruptly, leaving Asuka to wonder about Rei's motives. Shinji reappeared a moment later, looking slightly preoccupied.

"Ayanami, it's snowing furiously outside. I don't think it would be in your best interests to try going home in this condition; you might be better off spending…the night here…"

"I cannot do that," Rei protested. "I have already imposed enough on you and Pilot Sorhyu by staying for dinner and borrowing clothes."

"I'm sure Asuka wouldn't mind sharing a room with you," Shinji pressed, hoping that this move wouldn't get him killed.

The redhead nodded without looking up from her food.

The Third Child did the dishes and cleared up while Asuka laid out a stack of blankets on the floor for the First. Rei decided that she would be fine sleeping in what she was wearing now, and Asuka figured it would be easiest to let her. She located a NERV complimentary set of toiletries in the bottom of one of the cabinets and handed that to Rei.

Later, Asuka had almost drifted off to sleep, when Rei suddenly said, "You are very upset about Misato."

Asuka's eyes snapped open. "And you're not?" she whispered sarcastically.

"I am," the First Child said quietly, "but I am concerned about your demeanor about the whole affair…it is not good to keep one's emotions bottled up as you have been doing."

"Shut up," Asuka hissed. "I don't need you telling me how to handle this situation, damn it. You—you have absolutely no right to—"

Images of her mother fluttered across her mind, silencing her.

Rei said nothing more.

Asuka turned her face to the wall and shut her eyes tightly, but it was a long time before sleep came to her.

* * *

Ritsuko touched her friend gently on the shoulder. "Miki."

The other doctor shook her head and remained hunched over her desk, sobbing quietly into her hands.

"Misato needs you to hope for her, not cry for her," Ritsuko said quietly, and sighed. She was no good at this. "Miki, we know you did everything you could have to make her well. Nobody blames you—"

"I do," Namika sobbed quietly.

Kaji took an understanding but firm grip on Ritsuko's arm and led her out of the office and back to Misato's room. They didn't enter, but instead stood by the window where they could have a clear view of the Major.

"This brings back bad memories for you, doesn't it?" he murmured.

Ritsuko was silent a long while before she answered. "I couldn't handle my mother's death," she said quietly. "She wasn't much of a mother to me, and she was not all that well liked at Gehrin, but she was my only relative. Still, it was much easier to pretend that I didn't care."

"And your father?" Kaji promptly gently.

"I never met him, and I don't care to." The blonde threw back her dyed hair, her feigning of nonchalance failing as a dark curtain of gloom settled over her eyes.

"I see." Kaji shrugged. "That's understandable."

"This is a different situation, though. Last time I had only to deal with my own feelings. This time there's Shinji and Asuka."

"The whole situation is hurting Asuka much more than she wants to admit," Kaji commented. He gripped the windowsill tightly and mentally willed Misato to come back, not only for himself, but for Shinji and Asuka.

Unbeknownst to him, Ritsuko mentally voiced the same prayer.

* * *

On Christmas Day Asuka awoke with her eyes swollen almost shut. She touched them gingerly and found them sticky and wet. Something in her dream had made her cry, but she could not recall it now.

She turned to her right and with some difficulty saw that Rei was gone, having folded her "bed" into a neat pile of blankets and pillows.

It's Christmas, she thought.

She remembered and hastened to her closet, tearing out whatever might be suitable to give as gifts. There was an old tape of German lullabies that Kaji had given her when she was young; perhaps Shinji could listen to it on his SDAT. Now for Rei…

Asuka searched frantically, finally emerging with a picture frame. It was covered with dust but the violets pressed between the two sides of the glass border were still as beautiful as ever. She grabbed an old T-shirt and scrubbed the glass as clean as she could, then slid out the picture of Kaji holding an eight-year-old Asuka. She'd find somewhere else to put that photograph later.

She didn't have fancy wrapping paper, but the tape had a clear plastic case and she found a small souvenir bag in which to place it. Rei's picture frame she placed in an old box decorated with fake flowers. Asuka held their gifts in one hand and with the other, picked up Misato's dress.

They were both outside waiting for her already. Asuka noted three more packages beneath the tree, and added hers to the pile.

"Merry Christmas," Shinji greeted her.

"Yeah, you too," she said quietly. Asuka poured herself a large cup of hot coffee and sipped contentedly. "Where are Ritsuko and Kaji?"

"Both at the hospital," Shinji answered her. He poured out a cup of coffee for Rei and finally one for himself. "They said they'd come back for lunch, though."

"What about Misato?" Rei interjected softly.

"I guess she'll be alone," Asuka murmured, staring into her cup. "How dreadful… maybe we should all go eat at the hospital so we can at least be near her." She looked around for support. "Right guys?"

"I approve," Rei said quietly.

"Shinji?"

"Yeah."

"Then that's settled. I'll call Kaji and tell him that." Asuka stirred her coffee and rubbed her hands together to keep warm.

"Should we open presents now?" Shinji wondered aloud, as he carried two steaming plates over to the table.

"Yeah, except it's too crowded for all of us to squeeze around Misato's plant, so everyone go get your own presents and bring them over here."

There was a bit of holiday cheer as they tried to decide whose was whose, as the givers watched the receivers attempt to decide which present belonged to them without opening them. Rei's was not too hard to guess, as the red package was evidently Asuka's and the blue Shinji's. Shinji had made his overly easy by putting their names on their packages. Asuka's, however, were not color-coded and had no labels. Shinji, unfortunately, soon correctly guessed that his was a tape and decided that the other must belong to Rei, as Asuka had told them which was Misato's. None of them said anything about Misato's packages, leaving them where they were.

Asuka opened Rei's present first, to find a delicately crafted tree ornament, a glass flower made with different shades of pink. Shinji's was a snowflake of blue and white glass.

Shinji hurried to find his SDAT in order to listen to Asuka's tape while the two girls opened his presents. They received identical pendants, a delicate glass rose hanging on a gold chain. Parts of the charm had been dyed red and green to match the petals and leaves.

"Thank you for the picture frame, Pilot Sorhyu," Rei voiced, and Asuka could almost swear that she saw a hint of a smile grace Rei's face for a split second. "It is quite lovely."

"You're welcome," Asuka mumbled. "And thanks for your present too." She fastened Shinji's pendant around her neck. "And you, Shinji."

"It's nothing," Shinji mumbled. He appeared to be deeply entranced as he listened to the tape, and Asuka beamed.

* * *

Ritsuko didn't mind the idea of not going back to Misato's for Christmas Day lunch. In fact, she thought it was better this way, since Namika could be included in their celebration as well—there was no way that Namika was going to leave the hospital.

Kaji had purchased a large stack of festive plates and napkins, and now she spread these around the table while he placed a fork and knife at each place. They had chosen to eat in a small room off the corridor beside Namika's office, where staff parties were usually held. Maya, Shigeru, and Makoto were due to arrive any moment. They had extended an invitation to The Commander only out of duty, but he had not responded, and Ritsuko felt it safe to assume that he wouldn't show up.

She heard Maya calling her softly and turned around. "Come in and pick a place to sit."

The pilots followed the technicians in and seated themselves in a row. Kaji commented on Asuka and Rei's matching necklaces, and they informed him that they had been gifts from Shinji. Kaji pulled out a camera and snapped a picture of the two girls together, promising a copy to both after he got it developed.

Dr. Ishiyama was the last to show up, her hair disheveled and her eyes red from crying. Ritsuko welcomed her with a hug and made her to sit at the head of the table.

"None of us wanted to cook, so we ordered out," she explained apologetically.

Namika shook her head. "That's quite fine. It all looks very good."

"Well then, dig in."

They did, with only Kaji pausing to fill everyone's glasses. It would have been a good occasion to share a few cans of beer, but given the condition of the beer-lover who should have been with them that day, the adults deferred and settled on juice and water.

Shinji hadn't realized that he was so hungry. Days of not bothering to cook nor eat properly had taken their toll on him, but he hadn't noticed. The Third helped himself to large servings of everything in sight and ate hungrily.

Rei declined the turkey but accepted a large helping of mashed potatoes and rice. Asuka, like Shinji, ate freely.

Ritsuko was helping herself to another spoonful of rice when she noticed her colleague picking at her food. She responded by splashing a large spoonful of mashed potatoes into Namika's plate. The doctor looked up, startled, and began to protest, but was silenced by Ritsuko's firm "Just eat it."

She did, and Kaji took the opportunity to use his spoon to flick a few peas into her plate so that they landed neatly in the middle of her mashed potatoes.

"HEY!" Miki protested, but Kaji was laughing furiously now, and Ritsuko was joining in. The doctor retaliated by flinging her balled up napkin at him. It hit him in the eye, but didn't stop him from laughing. By now even Shinji was having a hard time trying to keep from laughing, and Asuka was giggling openly.

A sharp series of beeps silenced them all immediately. Namika jumped out of her chair and ran out of the room. Ritsuko did the same. Shinji and Asuka made to follow, but Kaji instructed them to sit down.

"Kaji!" Asuka protested.

He silenced her with a finger on her lips. Presently Ritsuko came hurrying back.

"She's awake."

* * *

_How long have I slept? Three days? A week? Maybe years._

_It certainly feels like it._

Somebody was shining a light in her eye, and Misato tried to turn her head away.

Somebody was repeating her name.

Somebody was holding her hand and patting it reassuringly.

_Too much attention_.

But she forced herself to adjust to it slowly, opening her eyes millimeter by millimeter, to see Namika leaning over her and Kaji behind the doctor. She recognized Ritsuko's voice.

Misato tried to speak and found that she couldn't.

"There's a tube in your throat right now," Miki told her. Her eyes were swollen and red as she addressed Misato. "We should have it out by the end of the day."

She closed her eyes and opened them once to show that she understood.

"Hey, Katsuragi." Kaji nodded to the doctor, who quickly moved aside. "Merry Christmas."

She couldn't begin to tell him how she felt…drained and empty, devoid of life. Nevertheless, she made an effort to nod when Kaji asked if she would like to see the three Children.

If she had been able to, she would have cried upon seeing the relief flood Shinji's face as he hurried to her side. Rei stayed behind him, waiting her turn to speak, while Asuka crossed the room to get to her other bedside. Kaji briefly disappeared and reappeared a moment later with the pilots' presents.

There was a moment of tension in which everyone was silent, wondering if Misato could open her own presents. The Major solved that problem herself—she would not let her kids down. She moved only one finger, but everyone understood that she wished to do it herself. Namika and Ritsuko moved some pillows around to help prop her up.

She opened Shinji's first, refusing to let anyone help her despite her obvious difficulties, and found a pendant that identical to those of Asuka and Rei. Ritsuko fastened it around her neck, and Maya sighed in delight and commented about the fact that this pendant was glass and wouldn't cause any problems. If Misato minded the remark, she gave no hints.

Rei's was packaged with super sticky tape and gave her some trouble, even after Kaji encouraged her to just rip it up instead of attempting to preserve the paper. A third Christmas tree ornament emerged after she pulled open the box with trembling fingers. This one was white, simple and delicate, an angel floating in midair with its wings and dress billowing behind.

She tried again to speak but failed.

Asuka's dress was still resting in its bag, and Misato drew it out slowly with effort before spreading it over her lap for everyone to admire. After everyone had done so and the females had touched the soft velvet, the Major motioned for a pen. Namika pulled out the notebook she normally used for giving prescriptions, along with a blue ink pen.

After unsuccessful several attempts, they all leaned forward to see what Misato had written: a simple, unpunctuated sentence.

_I'll wear it the day I come home

* * *

_

Asuka fell asleep on Shinji's shoulder on the way home, and the latter received several "awwww!"s from other girls on the train. He blushed to himself, secretly being quite appreciative of the fact that Asuka was not awake to hear them.

The train rumbled to a stop, and Shinji gently shook her awake.

"Mm…don't want to go…"

The girls giggled hysterically and made Shinji blush even further as he tugged on Asuka's arm, muttering, "Come on!"

The cold air refreshed her a bit as they stepped out of the train station, and Asuka stretched her arms into the air and yawned before snapping them back into place and proclaiming that she hated the cold. Shinji smiled but said nothing. A few feet farther down the road, Asuka confided, "I'm really happy right now."

"I am too," Shinji admitted. "I feel like I could… run into that field and build a snowman and just… I don't know… roll in the snow."

He shook his head, still expecting Asuka to yell at him. Instead, she stopped in her tracks and waited for him to notice that she was no longer beside him.

"Why don't we?"

"Eh?"

"You said it yourself—why don't we go build a snowman and roll in the snow?"

"Because I've never built a snowman," Shinji mumbled, flustered now.

"That's not an excuse. Come on." She grabbed him by the sleeve of his jacket and dragged him through the gates into the field, where she promptly pushed him over and began rolling him like a log through the snow.

"Stop it! mmph! Snow tastes… bad…"

Asuka giggled until she was hurting to let him stop, at which point he quickly took the opportunity to give her the same treatment.

"BAKA! I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!" she shouted, through mouthfuls of snow.

Shinji had never felt such exhilaration in his life as he let Asuka chase him around the field as she screamed out German and Japanese curses, both of them ducking and blinding hurling crudely made snowballs in the other's direction.

* * *

NERV did not print maps of its facilities. After all, they did not regularly entertain tourists in a building where 95 of its contents were top secret.

So Asuka had some trouble getting there. In the few times that she had come before, Shinji had led the way and she had been content to follow without paying any attention. Now, however, she was alone, and the Second came to quite a few dead ends before the automatic sliding doors came into view.

She didn't quite know where to go. A nurse clad in white approached her, bowing respectfully.

"Major Katsuragi is down this hallway, Pilot Sorhyu—"

"I'm not here to see Misato," she interjected. "I'm here to see Dr. Ishiyama."

"Oh." The nurse hesitated, a bit taken back. "Her room is the third on the left, down the back hallway—"

"Thanks."

And she was off, tucking a lock of shorn red hair behind her ear. Several nurses passed her with quizzical looks. Asuka made no reaction and came to the soundproof wooden door at last.

**Dr. Namika Ishiyama**

She knocked twice.

"Come in."

The doctor was surprised to see her. Ritsuko had warned her that the Second Child was not an easy one, and she braced herself mentally.

"Yes, Pilot Sorhyu?"

Asuka thought briefly about telling her that she preferred to be called by her first name and decided against it.

"I want to be tested, to see if I'm a match."

Namika did not blink. "Excuse me?"

Asuka sighed. "Look, it's pretty obvious by now that whatever therapy you've got Misato on isn't doing much good. Don't tell me it hasn't occurred to you that she needs a bone marrow transplant."

Even as nimble as she usually was, Namika was temporarily dumbfounded. The doctor rose from her swiveling chair, white lab coach swishing about her legs.

"The system of treatments being used on Major Katsuragi is none of your concern," she said coldly. "If she eventually needs a transplant, it is I who will make that decision."

"Fine," Asuka retorted. "But you really ought to see how much it's hurting Shinji Ikari to see Misato like this. And the very least you could do in return for all the times he's saved your life in Angel attacks—is to put forward 110 toward saving Misato."

The door closed behind her.

Author's Notes: The Christmas chapter, which I fortunately managed to finish before Christmas. Unfortunately, it's still about two months late. . Sorry guys.

This story started in summer and I'm planning to bring it around full circle and have it end in summer too, one year after Misato's diagnosis.

I got the German translations from an online translator and unfortunately don't know anybody who speaks fluent German, so I hope they're fairly accurate. In case they're extremely off, Asuka's box (the one she removes from Makoto Hyuga's car) is labeled "Souvenirs from Germany" and the shirt that Rei borrows reads "I am proud to be German".

Unfortunately, Quickedit seems to love stripping away all of my dividers. Does anyone know what can be used as dividers in Word that won't get stripped off as soon as I upload it? (Hopefully it's been fixed now, since I readded them in after uploading.)

I think that's all, beyond the fact that I really wish it would snow here.

Happy Thanksgiving all!


	5. despondency

In her heart, she knew—had known before—that the Second was right. But she had hoped desperately that something else would work and that they wouldn't have to come to this—their _last_ hope—because if it failed…

Namika slid a thick leather-bound book out of its place on her bookshelf of medical encyclopedias and opened it, flipping relentlessly through the pages until she found what she was looking for.

All the basic "match" stuff about bone marrow transplants was common knowledge in these ages, even if the full mechanics remained a mystery except for those in the medical field. Everyone knew that a matched donor gave the patient the best hope for life and that a close relative—preferably a brother or sister—was most likely to have the same HLA antigens on their white blood cells. Which, of course, put Misato at a disadvantage.

She remembered once, many years ago, when the conversation at their table had switched around to their families. Ritsuko had shut up almost immediately. Misato said nothing either. Everyone knew who she was and who her father _had_ been. Namika had not thought it appropriate then to question about her mother. She had not expected it to become a necessity in the future.

She glanced out of the window and opened it to give herself a full view. Christmas had gone and passed, as had New Year's. Misato had recovered decently from her sudden collapse, and the doctor had even chosen to let her go home for two days—forty-eight hours, and no more. It made her smile, remembering how Misato's eyes had lit up like a child on Christmas morning when she heard the news. Kaji drove her home, all dressed up in Asuka's gown, and Ritsuko drove Shinji and Asuka, though both adults scattered soon afterwards—after all, they didn't live in the Katsuragi residence.

"I want you to call me immediately—and I mean IMMEDIATELY—if you feel any discomfort," she had instructed Misato, "and you two—" gesturing to Shinji and Asuka: "make sure she does so."

* * *

"You used the plant for a Christmas tree?"

Misato couldn't help from giggling. Whatever feelings of despair that had plagued her a few weeks ago were long gone, replaced with bubbles of giddiness as Asuka and Shinji related all the tales of the days they had spent together, leaving out the loneliness and suspense.

"And then Asuka burned three pancakes in a row—"

"You stepped on Pen-pen's flipper in the night—"

"—Asuka had just tripped over her German dictionary—"

"—at least I wasn't peeping while you were showering!"

"I DID NOT!"

"DID TOO!"

"DID NOT! I didn't know you were in there!" Shinji protested, his face beet red.

The temporarily silence, consisting of Shinji and Asuka glaring daggers at each other, was temporarily broken by Misato clapping her hands and laughing.

"Oh, that's beautiful, just beautiful…"

Asuka and Shinji glared at each other and decided to reconcile their differences later.

Misato looked lovely despite the weight she had lost; the red tone of the dress went nicely with her dark eyes and hair. She wore Shinji's necklace around her neck, and it swung back and forth from time to time as she leaned forward. Asuka saw it, smiled, and instinctively reached up to touch her own. Burned pancakes or not, she appreciated the boy more than she cared to admit.

"And school?" Misato asked.

"It's decent," Asuka proclaimed. "I eat lunch with Hikari every day in the hallway since it's _so_ cold outside nowadays. And I have a 98 in Japanese literature now! I've been working on my kanji."

Misato reached across the table and gave Asuka a hug. The Second Child was touched, but couldn't help feeling a tinge of sadness at how weak her arms were now.

"I wish I could go outside for a little while," Misato mused. "I'm so sick of being inside."

"It's kind of cold outside though," Shinji pointed out.

Asuka stood up. "Why should that matter if we bundle her up properly? Here, put on some pants under your dress, and take my boots—Shinji, get her winter jacket, the one with the hood—"

"You know Dr. Ishiyama would never allow this," he whispered, as Asuka ducked into the closet for the winter boots.

"It's time she had some freedom," Asuka insisted. Her voice came out muffled as she searched behind the rack of clothes. "At the first sign of anything, we'll call NERV."

Shinji hesitated. "Ten minutes only."

"Ten minutes," she agreed.

They bundled Misato up as warmly as they could get. Asuka removed a pair of leather gloves from the jacket's pockets and insisted that she wear them, as well as an old, ragged blue scarf ("Well, it's the only one I can find.")

She loved being able to walk on her own and having Shinji and Asuka on either side. Being waited on constantly had initially been interesting, but it soon grew old when the only reason the nurses did so was because she couldn't do it herself.

They entered the elevator and Misato pushed the button for L1.

"It's hot," she complained, as the elevator slowly lowered itself down to the first floor.

"You won't think that when you get outside."

She had to agree with them when the time came. The cold air bit her skin and stung her nose and ears. Nevertheless, she followed Asuka and Shinji eagerly, like little children, into the parking lot where her old, broken down car lay unused.

"Hey, it's you," she laughed, touching the trunk affectionately to make two handprints in the snow.

"HEY!"

Shinji rubbed the back of his head, having just been attacked by a perfectly aimed snowball from Asuka. In an instant he was off chasing her for revenge, crumpling snow into as tight a ball as he could manage while he ran.

Misato dipped her fingers into the powdery snow and sprinkled them over Asuka's red hair as she passed.

"That's not fair!" Asuka whined, but the short moment she paused gave Shinji the opportunity to launch another snowball at her face.

"Sorry."

"Don't apologize, Third Child." Asuka seized a handful of snow and rubbed it in his face. "Or you're going to regret it."

"Hey, hey, HEY!"

While Asuka busied herself keeping Shinji on the ground as she rubbed snow onto his face, ignoring his howls, Misato slowly bent her knees, wincing as she heard them crack. She gathered a small handful of snow and packed it into a tiny, compact sphere, then slowly added more to it. Shinji's shrieks were growing higher pitched now, and Asuka did not relent.

Misato stared at the snowball in her hand, then suddenly pulled her arm back and let it fly. It smashed into tiny pieces on Asuka's shoulder.

"HEY!" the girl shouted, whirling around. In that one moment Shinji recovered and leapt to his feet, but this time didn't attack in retaliation.

"That was a pretty good shot," he commented, with real admiration in his voice. "I saw that coming."

"Why didn't you warn me!"

"Er…was I supposed to?"

"Baka." Asuka pushed him over again.

* * *

"You look happy today." 

"You look pretty today," Misato commented, as the doctor flipped a page on the newly added calendar that hung above her television. "What? You do."

"Thanks. Anyway." She took a seat on the nearest chair and began without preamble. "I've just been looking over your latest test results, and I've come to the conclusion that your best option is to do a bone marrow transplant."

Silence.

"Misato?"

"I'm just thinking," she said quietly. "Doesn't that require one of my relatives…or something?"

Namika leaned forward slightly. "Are there any that might be willing?"

"I have none alive," Misato stated flatly. "My mother died some ten years ago."

"Oh," Namika said softly, returning to her normal sitting stance. "Well, we can try for a non-related donor then."

"That's pretty unlikely though, isn't it?"

Namika thought back to a time before Second Impact, before she had decided to become a doctor, when the word had been spreading about the need for bone marrow donors and people had signed up by the thousands. Time and energy had been diverted toward much more pressing needs after the year 2000.

"We'll try," she promised.

"I really don't have any other options, do I?"

"Not really." Namika was forced to concede. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the Major shift.

"All right then. Let's go for it."

* * *

"Why's Sorhyu getting out of Sensei's lectures early?" Touji grumbled. His stomach growled, and he recalled with annoyance that he had forgotten to pack his lunch. He glanced jealously at Hikari Horaki, who always had the best lunches. Perhaps he'd be able to convince her to share a bit with him. 

"Because I am divine, stooge," she muttered, slinging her bag over her shoulder and disappearing out the door. "See you, Hikari."

"Well, it must not be NERV related," Shinji commented quietly. "I haven't been called… and neither has Ayanami…"

Asuka, too, had no idea what she was being called to NERV for, but she didn't let this show in front of her classmates. She had a reputation to maintain, after all, but once she boarded the nearly-empty train, her fingers twisted into knots and she crossed her legs, clearly uncomfortable with the situation.

Her sync ratios had been stable in the last few weeks.

The angel alarms had not gone off.

Misato—

Asuka pushed that thought out of her mind.

_They'd call Shinji and Wondergirl if anything had happened._

"I'm here, Dr. Akagi," she called out upon entering the Geofront. "What do you need me for?"

"You're not needed here, you're needed at the hospital," Ritsuko informed her, watching her beadily over the rim of her spectacles.

After she had disappeared, Maya asked softly, "Sempai, why?"

Ritsuko shrugged without response and turned back to the report clamped to her clipboard, absentmindedly tracing the bolded _Unit_ _03_ splashed across the top of page.

* * *

"I need a compass," Asuka growled. When she was piloting her Eva she had free reign of Tokyo-3—no need to follow roads or paths—but a few twists and turns within the many hallways of the NERV building soon had her perplexed. It was relief that she finally found the hospital and entered, this time making her way directly to the head doctor's office. 

She knocked twice.

"Come in." Namika laid down her clipboard. "Good afternoon, Pilot Sorhyu."

"Good afternoon."

"Are you still willing to be tested to see if you're a match for Major Katsuragi?" she asked, rising to her feet and pushing in her chair.

Asuka's eyes widened. Quickly she regained her composure, and there was no doubt in her voice when she spoke.

"Yes."

"Follow me."

They led her into a tiny, windowless room with blinding white walls and a white bed, upon which she was made to sit while the doctor organized supplies.

"Hold out your arm."

She did so, and Namika sterilized it with a dab of alcohol.

The needle went into her arm without warning. Asuka watched disinterestedly while the small tube filled with her blood. The doctor slid the needle out deftly, wiped the puncture with a sterile piece of gauze, and taped a colorful bandage over it.

"You're free to go."

"When'll we know the results?" she queried.

"In a few days," the doctor promised. "Anything else?"

"No."

Asuka tore off the bandage and threw it in the trash on her way out.

* * *

"What's wrong with your arm, Asuka?" 

"It hurts," she grumbled. Getting blood drawn was not supposed to be a big deal—she had had the procedure done many times before—but somehow this time it was bruising severely, as if someone had punched her in the crook of her elbow.

Shinji looked concerned. "Do you want some ice for it? Or a heating pad?"

"N—" Asuka started to say, then changed her mind. "That would be quite nice, actually."

Shinji smiled and disappeared to the kitchen.

Asuka nursed her arm with the other hand and stared down at Pen-pen, who was fast asleep on his back after having finished his meal. _Suspense is worse than knowing_, she thought worriedly. She wished she had asked the doctor for a more specific date. A "few" days could mean anywhere from two to five.

"Here you go," Shinji handed her the heating pad. His eyes widened at the sight of her bruised arm. "What happened to you?"

"I had some blood drawn... nothing too serious." Asuka was reluctant to tell him the truth, wanting instead to avoid the subject.

"Oh…" Shinji suddenly felt rather guilty. "You're not supposed to put heat on bruises… I'll go make you an ice pack instead."

"Don't, Third," Asuka called. "It's cold enough in this place. I'll freeze if I have to place ice on my arm." He hesitated, and she patted the chair next to him. "Come sit here and talk to me for awhile."

Shinji obeyed.

"So what were you doing, skulking around the house when I came in?"

"I was looking for a calculator," Shinji replied smoothly, "…so I could finish the problems Sensei left us in class." He shifted uneasily. "I'm kind of worried about tomorrow's exam…"

Asuka laughed. "What I like, you hate. What you hate, I like." Seeing Shinji's baffled expression, she elaborated, "Algebra doesn't require nearly as much knowledge of kanji as any of the other things we do in school. Besides, I've done all of this before in college, so it's easy for me."

"You're lucky."

She shrugged. "Well, I have to redo several years of high school after graduating college, in a language I'm not too familiar with. That's not really something you'd want to do."

"I guess…"

When it became apparently that he wasn't going to say anything else, she took the initiative.

"Come on, Third Child… get your books, and I'll explain DeMoivre's Theorem to you."

"Are you sure?" Shinji hesitated. "I-I don't want to bother you or anything, I mean…"

"Just do it."

He copied while she talked, and then she forced him to reiterate her words in a way that convinced her he had understood.

"Three root two."

"Three? I thought negative three." Asuka frowned at the paper and pointed to the mistake. "You dropped a negative sign there, Shinji."

"Sorry," he mumbled and fumbled with his eraser. A moment later he noticed that not only had Asuka not insulted him, she had called him Shinji. The girl wore a sad and faraway expression, as if she were in a world of her own. He finished the problem, took a deep breath, and went out on a limb.

"Do you want me to teach you some kanji?"

She perked up again at this and seemed to consider. "If you don't mind."

Shinji fetched the book, and Asuka curled up her legs and put her head on his shoulder, maintaining the ice pack on her elbow with the other hand. Shinji blushed crimson, quickly chose a page, cleared his throat, and began to read.

* * *

"Tired?" 

"Stop rubbing it in," Namika grumbled, rubbing her eyes. However, all that served was to fog them up, and she muttered darkly as she removed her glasses and wiped them on the hem of her shirt.

"You know I'm not trying to," Ritsuko countered, taking a seat and sliding the phone book over to her. "Are you really calling them up one by one, trying to find Misato a relative?"

"Somebody's gotta be alive," Namika muttered cryptically. "Damn people won't admit it."

Ritsuko glanced at the massive microfuge, spinning along merrily and making its faint whirring sound without pause before suddenly coming to a stop.

"Can you put those on ice and shove it in the freezer?"

Ritsuko obeyed. "How are the results coming?" she asked, although she already knew the answers.

"The Second's not a match."

"She's German," Ritsuko said, as if that settled the situation.

"Well, I couldn't help but hope. Yours came back negative too. So did mine. As did that of your bespectacled technician."

"Makoto was here?"

"Yeah, at like five in the morning…"

Ritsuko groaned. It was going to kill Makoto to find out that he wouldn't be able to protect the woman he cared so deeply for, even if he had never voiced his feelings. "Who else showed up?"

"The Commander."

"What?"

"Yeah, he came down here at lunch and didn't say anything. It took me about ten minutes to notice he was standing in the doorway, and when I finally got around to addressing him, all he did was stick out his arm."

"Interesting…"

Namika snorted. "Believe it or not, he's got the closest match to Misato so far. If all else fails we're going to have to use him."

She pulled the phone book back over and picked up the telephone. Ritsuko snatched it away from her.

"I'll call for a few hours," she said, silently wondering how many Katsuragis there could possibly be in the phone book. "You go onto sleep."

* * *

"It's going to be a long healing process." 

"She's only a primary student. How difficult for her."

"Has that boy come today?"

"Yes, he's still coming twice a week. Such good brothers are hard to find nowadays.

"Excuse me," Shinji muttered dully. The nurses immediately stopped chatting and wheeled the cart aside so that they could pass. Asuka glanced at it briefly. The girl lying upon it was perhaps six or seven years old. Her face was turned away from them.

"I didn't know they treated regular kids in here," she remarked, as the doors slid open and allowed them to leave.

"Maybe she's somebody's daughter?" Shinji wondered.

"I don't know anybody at NERV with a daughter that age."

"One of the workers that we haven't met, maybe."

Asuka thought it over and conceded. "Maybe."

The elevator door shut behind them. Asuka punched the appropriate button, and the car immediately began to sink.

"I hope Touji and Hikari aren't there already."

Asuka remembered with a jolt that the two were coming over to collaborate on a school project, but didn't let on that she had forgotten. "I don't understand why we're doing a group project. It's so much easier to work on one's own—you're in charge of what you're doing, and nobody argues with you."

"Sensei thinks it'll be better if we learn from each other," reminded Shinji, recalling that each group would prepare a presentation for the class.

"I can learn on my own," Asuka muttered. "Though I don't understand why I got paired with that stooge and you with Hikari. It would be much better if it was the other way around."

"You would rather work with me?"

"Obviously, since—HEY! I meant that it would be wonderful for Hikari and the stooge to have a chance together, not that—that I'd enjoy working with you!"

Shinji didn't say anything.

Hikari brought pastries with a variety of fruit fillings to share. Touji was already munching away, but Hikari's cheeks were pink with pride, and she did not hurry to lecture him.

"My dad gave me this book last night when I mentioned that we were studying nuclear chemistry," she explained, holding it up so that Shinji could see the large illustration of the Bohr model splashed across the cover.

"That's great…" Shinji eyed the thick volume with apprehension. "Do you want to sit down? We can work on the table."

"Then where are we going to work?" Asuka demanded.

"You can have the other side of the table," Hikari offered, graciously moving her platter of pastries. "Would you like one, Ikari-kun?"

"Thank you…"

Asuka growled under her breath, still unhappy with the situation. "All right, stooge, you sit there, and I'm going to go get my books. And don't…"

The sound of mechanical laughter made her turn. Her partner had settled himself comfortably on the couch with his feet resting on the coffee table, and was lazily flipping through the channels.

Oblivious to Asuka and Touji, Shinji hoisted a large sheet of posterboard onto the table, while Hikari flipped through her book.

"I think we ought to have an image of Rutherford's experiment with the gold foil," she suggested. "There's a nice picture of it here, we could just draw that."

"I'll write out his conclusions," Shinji agreed. "Green or red words?"

"Umm… red. Do you mind if the electrons are blue?"

"That's fine."

Asuka stomped over to her uncooperative partner. "What do you think you're doing?"

Touji pressed the "Channel up" button.

She tried to wrestle the remote control from his hand, with no luck.

"I don't know about you, but I want to do well on this project!" she shouted. "And like it or not, you're going to help me!"

Touji changed his mind and pressed the "Channel down" button.

Asuka sighed and decided that she would rather work alone than lower herself to trying to drag him off of the couch. Shinji's voice followed her around the corner as she stalked off to her room to find paper.

"What else do we want to add?"

"Millikan's oil experiment was pretty significant, the one where he determined the charge of an electron. Why don't you draw that one, and I'll write the facts this time?"

"All right."

Touji sighed and shut off the TV. He walked rigidly over to the door, put on his shoes, and muttered, "Sorry," before letting himself out.

Shinji broke the silence.

"Asuka will not be happy."

"I think something's really wrong with Suzuhara," Hikari whispered, a dark cloud settling over her eyes as she wrote. "He hasn't been himself lately at all. I wonder why?"

They silenced quickly as Asuka returned with a pad of paper and a fistful of colored markers, only to see that her partner had disappeared. Shinji braced himself mentally, hoping that Hikari would help to ease the disturbance that was soon to occur.

* * *

"Wow, this one?" 

"We had no other choice," Ritsuko informed her glumly, recounting her earlier conversation with The Commander, who had originally wanted to use the dummy plug, then insisted that Fourth's core be prepared immediately upon learning that the dummy plug was still producing errors.

Misato contemplated this as she played with a fold of her hospital gown. Ritsuko had just broken the news to her, and she was not at all sure what to think of it.

"Asuka's proud to be an Evangelion pilot. Rei, well, she doesn't have any problems with our work. But Shinji…he's been hurt enough as it is. I can't see Shinji being very happy about this; he's not super thrilled about piloting Eva in the first place and he wouldn't want anyone else to go through it. Asuka won't be happy either," she predicted. "She won't understand why someone of his caliber was selected."

"The decision was beyond our hands," Ritsuko reminded quietly.

"I know that."

"Will you tell him?"

"Why just him? What about Asuka and Rei?"

"Asuka, unfortunately, found out by accident this morning, through interrupting Kaji at work. Rei, I believe, has already been informed by The Commander." There was a strong stigma of annoyance in her tone.

"And Shinji has been left in the dark. It doesn't seem quite fair, does it?"

Ritsuko didn't know how to reply and chose to ignore the comment. "His only request was that his younger sister be placed in NERV's hospital."

"Maybe he'll tell Shinji himself."

"I doubt it. He didn't look happy at all when he found out. He'll be doing his first actual test in a few days, so we'll have the TV monitor hooked up again."

"Looking forward to it," Misato commented dryly.

The conversation ended there.

* * *

"Now I understand why you said your arm hurt," Shinji remarked, lifting his free hand up again to look at his left elbow. The bruise had developed a two inch-long diameter and was quickly spreading. He was getting stares from nearby passengers on the train. Next to him, Asuka tapped her foot impatiently as if she had some important information that she could not quite conceal. She masked it by maintaining a firm hold on the topic at hand. 

"I still don't understand why they wanted you to do it immediately. They already knew you'd agreed to it, so what was the rush?"

"Because Father wants me to do some sort of testing the day after tomorrow," Shinji mumbled miserably, hanging his head. Asuka looked up at him, surprised that he didn't know, then quickly composed her face and spoke in a calm voice.

"Oh yeah—damn, my memory's getting short nowadays."

When Shinji still didn't respond, she placed an arm briefly around his shoulder. "It's all worth it if you turn out to be the one who can save Misato, right?"

"Of course. I'm not a wimp… I don't mind the pain."

_There may be more coming than you can handle_, Asuka thought grimly.

* * *

Rei heard voices as she walked up the stairs, but didn't let it disturb her. Many nights her neighbors held raucous parties that lasted into the early hours of the day, and she had learned from a young age to live in whichever place NERV chose to delegate her. However, by the time she reached the fourth floor, she was quite certain that the voices were coming from her room. 

"…changed a lot…"

"What?"

"You, Shinji. When you first came, I thought you were a jerk. You didn't seem like the kind of person who would do something for the sake of other people. I guess it's just that you're so quiet."

_Suzuhara-kun_, Rei thought, hesitating outside her room. Her gaze fell on the many envelopes that occupied the slender opening in her door designed for mail, but the sight did not penetrate her mind. _The Fourth Child._

She hesitated for a moment, trying to decide what to do. It would not be polite to intrude on their conversation, nor would it be feasible to simply stand outside her own room and eavesdrop. Rei settled on the first choice.

Both boys turned to look at her as she came inside and shut the door behind her without the faintest trace of surprise flickering across her face.

Suzuhara-kun bowed to her and gestured toward her bed, on which lay a large stack of papers. "Excuse us. These are your printouts from class."

Rei was silent, pondering what to do next. A sound from her left roused her, and she turned to see Ikari picking up wadded bandages from the floor.

For a moment, Rei was angry… she had come home after a grueling day at NERV, accentuated by the fact that Dr. Akagi had told her she wasn't needed as far as finding Misato a match was concerned; they could use a clone at any time. That line alone would have come as a slap in the face from anybody, but at this moment Rei could only see the blonde doctor's face, glowering at her over the rim of her glasses. She had wanted only a warm shower… she did not care to have Ikari touching her things.

"Sorry, I was cleaning up," Shinji explained, a hint of a smile on his boyish face. "I didn't touch anything except the trash."

_He was only trying to help…_

Rei felt the heat of embarrassment creeping into her face.

For some time, she did not know what to say…but when she finally responded, neither boy found her reply as strange as she herself did.

"Thank you."

* * *

Some time after the boys had left her room, Rei heard their voice outside her window and watched them as they made their way up the road. 

"Well, I guess all Eva pilots are strange," Suzuhara commented.

She remembered her initial encounter with Pilot Sorhyu, in which the Second had also informed her that she was strange.

Well, Rei had had enough strangeness for one day. She closed the window and walked to the bathroom, her socks making almost no sound on the carpet-less floor. Her own red eyes gazed back at her from her reflection in the mirror.

_Ikari does not know_, she recalled. _He will be the last to find out._

She did not know why this thought bothered her as she stepped into the shower and twisted the faucet, allowing the icy cold droplets to sprinkle over her skin while she waited for it to warm.

_I have not been told to inform Ikari of the Fourth Child's identity… that is for Misato to decide_.

Rei held her eyes open under the showerhead, hardly noticing the water in her eyes.

_Ikari went to the trouble of doing something for me… not because he was ordered to; he simply did it for me._ _It is not fair for him not to know…_ _perhaps I ought to…_

_No, it is not my place_.

Rei shut off the faucet. She removed a white towel from an overhead shelf and draped it over herself before disappearing back into her main room.

* * *

"Presentations for your group projects will begin tomorrow, as previously decided. I trust that you all will be very prepared to teach us an informative lesson." 

Hikari looked to Shinji and gave him a thumbs-up sign. Shinji smiled back, remembering that their poster was stored safely at school, in the teacher's closet. Behind him, Asuka growled menacingly at Touji, who appeared to pay no attention.

"I'll help you when we get home," Shinji whispered out of the corner of his mouth.

"I'll do it myself," Asuka grumbled, "I don't need your help."

"Sorry."

Shinji ducked his head over his paper again, wondering miserably what he had done this time. It was disappointing, he thought, that Asuka's good moods so rarely lasted.

Two rows ahead of him, Hikari looked back at the class but focused in particular on the boy she liked. There was no doubt that something was wrong; he had either not been in school or had been spacing out during class. And come to think of it, he hadn't been eating lunch either—and Hikari knew very well just how much Touji Suzuhara liked food.

_Maybe I should prepare lunch for him tomorrow_, Hikari thought. _I've always got things left over from cooking for Nozomi and Kodama… no, maybe that would be too obvious. But it is my duty to look after my classmates—and if one of them is having problems, I should help, right?_

"Miss Horaki."

"Yes!" Hikari snapped out of her daze. The teacher barely blinked as he extended a ceramic mug toward her. Not quite understanding what she was supposed to do, Hikari placed her hand into the cup and pulled out a folded piece of paper.

_7. _

"What did you get?" she hissed to Asuka.

"ONE!" Asuka shouted. "And obviously we won't be ready to present first, since HE isn't doing anything!"

The entire class turned as one to look at Touji, who had no reaction.

Hikari gulped, waiting for Asuka to continue her tirade, but none followed. Instead the intercom came on, and they all listened intently.

"Suzuhara Touji, of class 2A, please come to the principal's office immediately."

"Huh?"

"Suzuhara, you are excused," the teacher pronounced, extending his mug to the next pairing. Touji dragged his feet to the door and disappeared around the corner just as the student cried out, "Oh no! Ayami, we have to present second!"

Hikari kept her eyes firmly glued to the paper she held in her hand and away from the door, finally giving in to glance at her friends. Shinji looked plainly confused, while Asuka was frowning with her eyes closed and her arms crossed.

_I'll stop by the market on the way home and buy some fresh tomatoes…_

* * *

"He still doesn't know?" 

Misato sighed. "I just can't find a chance to tell him. I can't figure out what he's thinking. I don't know. I'm getting worried."

"You're the one who wanted to be his guardian," Ritsuko reminded.

"I know… so the testing will be done at Matsushiro tomorrow?"

"Yes, speaking of which – have you discussed with Miki what you're going to do?"

"I'm definitely going," Misato said firmly. When Ritsuko's mouth opened, she quickly added, "with accommodations."

"What does Miki have to say about that?"

Misato chuckled mirthlessly. "Well, she's not happy about it, not that I'm really giving her any chance. Don't worry about me." Her face clouded over as her thoughts returned to Shinji. "Maybe the pilot will tell him about it himself."

"That won't happen. He wasn't happy enough to brag about it. The only thing he was concerned about was having his younger sister transferred to the medical unit."

"I should go see her sometime."

Silence.

"You don't have any more news on a match for me, do you?" Misato whispered, only a faint wisp of hope in her voice.

"I don't," Ritsuko apologized. "Maya's results haven't come out yet though, and neither have Shinji's. Miki is busy working on reinstating a program for donors."

"Shinji, huh?"

"Well, it's worth a try…"

"I guess." She lay back down and focused on the pattern of the ceiling. "I wonder how many of those little dots there are? I've been trying to count for several days now but I keep losing count."

Ritsuko privately reminded herself to procure permission from Namika to allow Misato to go out more often.

"Take care of yourself," she insisted. "I'll be seeing you tomorrow."

She had just shut the door to Misato's room when somebody came running up behind her, breathing heavily. Ritsuko turned to see Miki, waving her clipboard as usual. A faint glimmer of hope found its way into Ritsuko's mind—Miki looked _happy_, for the first time in weeks—but she hardly dared hope—

"Into my office," were Namika's first words, and Ritsuko followed the doctor into her room and closed the door behind her.

"We have a match!"

"Maya?"

"No, the Third Child—Shinji Ikari!"

"What…?"

Ritsuko could scarcely believe it; _Shinji a match… _

"Look." Namika reached over to her desk and pulled over a large stack of documents, apparently brimming with excitement. "Look at the HLAs…this one's Misato's, this one's Shinji's…" She spoke so quickly that Ritsuko had hardly a moment to look at the page before she had moved on to another diagram. "Her antigen pattern and his share—"

"Spare me the medical lecture; chances are I won't understand half of it anyway," Ritsuko begged. Namika pulled the stack back over to her, looking concerned at Ritsuko's grim face. "Just tell me, how likely do you think this will give Misato another chance at life?"

"I can't be one-hundred percent sure, obviously, but it's pretty darn likely." Namika breathed again at seeing Ritsuko's tension dissipate. "Now, do you want to inform Shinji, or should I do it?"

"I'll tell Shinji. You can tell Misato."

"All right."

Ritsuko pulled her old college friend into a hug as she stood up; Miki, who was not used to such casualness from Dr. Akagi, was taken aback at first, then warmly returned the gesture before hurrying out of the room.

_We always refer to the Evangelion as a miracle_, Ritsuko thought, _but the biggest miracles are those that happen in the medical field…_

She had a fleeting moment in which she wished she had become a medical doctor instead of one that worked with giant biomechanical monsters. Ritsuko reached for the phone, then decided she would rather inform the Third face-to-face. She picked up her purse and strode out of the office, her heels clanking on the polished floor.

For the first time that winter, snow was something beautiful to be enjoyed, and Ritsuko took her time getting to her car through the thick snowdrifts. In that moment she knew nothing of NERV or Evangelions; her mind was filled only with Misato's life, that she was going to be all right, that everything would be fine…

* * *

"Unit 3 activation Test: T minus 30 minutes." 

"Refrigeration systems in all sections functioning at standard levels."

"Pressure lock on left arm secured in place."

"Misato-san?"

Misato's haggard face broke into a smile upon seeing him upon the screen in front of her. Shinji was already in Unit 01, awaiting further directions. As for Misato, she was seated inside a cozy piece of shelter, surrounded by various TV screens, showing her what was going on in various areas around the testing site.

"I'm so happy, Misato-san," Shinji broke out breathlessly. "I was so glad when Ritsuko told me last night…"

She let him talk. He was rarely this happy, and she was determined to let it last as long as it could. Her thoughts wandered back to the Fourth and her smile waned.

"Misato-san?"

"I'm really happy too," she told him. "Shinji, I—"

"The Fourth Child has arrived. Squad 2, begin entry preparations immediately."

Misato frowned. "I'll talk to you later," she promised Shinji, and a moment later his worried face disappeared from view.

"Did you tell him?" Ritsuko asked as she entered.

"I'll tell him after this test," she answered decisively before stretching her arms out as far as they would reach above her head. "Exclusive possession of four EVAs… if we wanted to, we could destroy the world."

"You don't sound too happy. This unit will be under your direct command, you know."

"Entry plug secured," the operator's voice announced, and both ladies quickly turned their attention back to the panels. "Begin Phase One connection. Transmitting pulses… graph displace within norms. List clear through 1-3-5-0."

"Transfer the operation to Phase Two," Ritsuko responded.

"Full nerve link established. List clear through 2-5-5-0. Harmonics all reading standard."

"Approaching absolute threshold."

"There's a huge power surge coming from inside the unit," Ritsuko groaned, worry etching itself into lines across her face. "Abort the test! Cut the circuits!"

* * *

"He hasn't come yet, Asuka." 

"Maybe he won't come today," Asuka muttered. She was seated at her desk, her head propped up with one fist, while Hikari lingered near the door with a neatly wrapped bento in hand.

Asuka was furious. Touji had been "unreachable" during the previous night, and she had stayed up until four finishing the project on her own. Now Hikari was busy fawning over the boy, and all she wanted to do was to lie down and sleep—yet her cell phone chose just that moment to go off.

Asuka jumped to her feet and ran for the door, along with the rest of the students who were attempting to get into a shelter.

* * *

"There's been an accident involving an explosion at Matsushiro!" 

"What about Misato-san?" Shinji yelled, but his voice was drowned out by the technicians':

"Unidentified moving object detected as the site."

"Pattern orange, can't be confirmed as an angel."

A tiny panel popped up on the side of Shinji's screen. Rei appeared in it, looking calm and composed as always, as she informed him, "They can't establish contact yet."

"Oh no… what should I do?"

A second panel appeared, this time featuring an angry Asuka who had been hurried into Unit 02. "What are you whining about? We can't do anything but worry now!

Rei's panel disappeared as Shigeru announced, "The target is approaching… All units, stand by for ground battle. We've got a visual on the main screen."

* * *

In most situations, Asuka liked to think that nothing could rattle her, but her jaw dropped and her eyes widened upon seeing this image. She heard Shinji's mechanically modified voice protesting, "No way… an Angel? _That's _the angel? That's an EVA, isn't it?" 

"I can't believe it," she whispered to no one in particular. "Was it taken over by an angel?"

"Is it piloted by a kid, like the other units? A child my age?"

_He doesn't know_, Asuka thought. Her heart thudded in her chest. _He's going to kill him…_ but for a few minutes she did not know which boy was 'he' and which boy was 'him', and she did not like to think of the consequences that would follow either situation.

_I have to tell him… I have to stop this…_

"Don't you know yet? Evangelion Unit 03 is—"

Her screen blacked out and she screamed in fury. Someone had knowingly cut off her connection in an attempt to keep her from informing Shinji of the pilot's identity.Shinji wasted precious time shouting her name, while The Commander announced smoothly, "From this time, Evangelion Unit 03 is abandoned, and the target is identified as the 13th angel."

* * *

Rei had heard everything, yet remained silent. Still, she flinched visibly as she was forced to watch Asuka's Eva being crushed by Unit 03. 

_The Angel, _she corrected herself mentally.

"Pilot has ejected. Salvage crew is on the way."

"The target is moving toward you, Rei—avoid close combat, and stop the target. I'll send Unit 01 soon."

Rei braced herself, readying the gun. Yet she hesitated just a fraction of a second too long.

The amount of time it took to think "_He's in there._"

_

* * *

Two Evas out in less than five minutes_, Shinji thought desperately. As Unit 03 neared him, he caught a glimpse of the entry plug.

_There's somebody inside!_

Amidst all the shouting about Rei's injuries, Shinji heard his father announcing, "The target is approaching. You will contact it within twenty… take care of it."

His fingers tightened on the controls.

* * *

"Misato?" 

With effort, Misato willed herself back to consciousness. Somebody was tugging on her hand, and she squeezed back lightly. The next thing she knew, somebody was helping her to sit up and she leaned against him.

"Kaji," she muttered.

"You're bleeding." He examined the wound, then took off his shirt and pressed it against her head to staunch the bleeding. Misato turned away, but he held the wadded material tightly in place.

"Damn you," she cursed. "Where are we?"

Her feet were numb from the January cold; apparently they were no longer inside the warm little room she recalled. She opened her eyes with a creditable effort to see a large crater in front of them. Her fingers scrabbled across the ground. She felt dried leaves. A few inches further, and they touched concrete.

Kaji sighed. "Well, we're somewhere in the middle of the forest around the ex-testing site." Misato tried to sit up further, but he held her in place, saying, "We can't go anywhere, Katsuragi, they're still battling it out."

"Battle what out?" she muttered angrily. Misato felt as if she were trying to put together a puzzle in which the pieces kept disappearing just as she nearly had her fingers locked around it. A thundering crash shook the ground and she cried out from the pain. Kaji tightened his arms around her.

"Unit 01 has been ordered to regard Unit 03 as the thirteenth angel," he explained somberly.

"What about Asuka? Rei?"

He glanced toward their left, and Misato followed his gaze to see Evangelion Unit 00's large severed arm resting by their side. But the scene that awaited her in the distance was far worse: Evangelion Unit 03, hovering over 01 as the former attempted to strangle the latter, pounding it mercilessly into the mountain.

"_Shinji-kun_!"

She struggled to get up, but Kaji held her down.

"I haven't told him," she whispered. "He doesn't know…"

"He must know something; he's not fighting back," Kaji muttered. He increased the force on his wadded shirt and frowned at the scene.

"Well, if it goes on like this, he'll die! Cut the synchronization to sixty percent!"

"Katsuragi… this is out of your hands now."

She hated it, not being at the head of the operation. For now, Major Misato Katsuragi was an outsider to the world of NERV; she had no control, she was not even privy to what information was being exchanged between NERV headquarters and the Eva. For the first time, she could only watch as a horrified civilian.

Her head throbbed; she put up a hand to her temple and pulled it away, sticky with blood.

"Kaji…"

"Something's changed." His voice was tense, drawing her back to the ongoing battle. "Look, Katsuragi… he's fighting back."

_Shinji wouldn't fight back_, Misato thought desperately, _he wouldn't hurt a fly… _yet then the memories of the Fourth angel came back to haunt her. _Shinji will do what it takes to kill an angel… if he doesn't know…_

She winced instinctively as Unit 01 threw its opponent to the ground and began ripping furiously at the back. Part of her hoped desperately that Shinji would win the battle and defeat the angel, but her other half reminded her that it was not quite fair to hope for the Fourth's death either. Once again Misato felt her hopelessness amplify, and she wanted to scream with frustration.

Kaji muttered something incomprehensible as Unit 01 towered over the broken 03, clutching it's entry plug in its massive hand.

Misato could have sworn she heard Shinji's scream, but under her current conditions she attributed it to hallucinations. Nevertheless, the _crunch_ that came with the scream was most certainly audible, and it lingered in her head for several moments afterwards.

"He doesn't know… " Misato whispered, as if it made all the difference in the world. She cried silently instead, tears mingling with the blood. She knew now that the duty of informing Shinji of the Fourth's identity would also involve informing him of his subsequent death.

_How cruel life is…_

She let herself fade into oblivion as Kaji watched on helplessly.

* * *

NERV's hospital was being swarmed. Namika was kept on her toes, running from room to room, prepping for surgery and taking x-rays. Twenty minutes earlier she had seen the Major into the hospital and begun transferring fluids to her dehydrated body, but for now three of her top assistants were handling the Major alone, and she was needed elsewhere. 

"You've got a comminuted fracture," she told the worker grimly as she fiddled with the X-ray machine. "Hold still now… done."

The man swore intensely as he tried to move his hand.

Things had quickly gone from bad to worse. The explosion that had nearly killed Misato and Ritsuko, along with several hundred others, would have been enough on its own to warrant an emergency, but three of out of NERV's four viable pilots were now physically injured, and the fourth… Namika knew that emotional injuries were much harder and took longer to heal. Misato herself was a prime example of that.

The Second Child, Sorhyu Asuka Langley, had fortunately been extricated from her entry plug before suffering any serious injuries—a broken arm and a grade-3 concussion.

The First Child, Ayanami Rei, had not been so fortunate. She had been nearly unconscious by the time rescuers reached her entry plug and for the time being, remained comatose but stable.

The Fourth Child… Namika shivered. She had heard of him previously from Misato and Ritsuko, yet the first time she met him he was near death and had to be told that he was going to have an arm and a leg amputated. He was asleep now, and for that Namika was grateful; she was not looking forward to telling him that his dreams of being a star basketball player were now galaxies away.

She returned to Misato's room.

"We're almost finished, Dr. Ishiyama," one of her assistants informed her breathlessly from behind her blue mask.

"Let me see." Namika crossed the room and tipped Misato's head gently. "It looks pretty good. Put a sterilized bandage over it, and keep me updated."

"Yes, Dr. Ishiyama."

* * *

It took Asuka longer than she would have liked to recover—almost three weeks before the neck stiffness, headache, and confusion went away. She spent most of the twenty-one days in bed, but during the few hours that she felt well enough to stand on both feet, she visited Misato or Rei. The latter had been much harder, seeing as Asuka usually had little to say to the First Child, but she felt somehow that this fight had tied them all together. 

She cried upon hearing that Touji was alive, and cried again when she learned that he had lost two limbs in the fight. The redhead no longer knew why she cried; she wasn't sure if it was out of relief, sadness, or guilt that she had treated him so over a stupid chemistry project. Now, three weeks after the incident, she still could not find the courage to enter his hospital room. Shinji had done it several times, and things had apparently not gone well.

_Shinji_. Asuka sighed as she wandered down the hallway. He was a completely different story; he had been hospitalized briefly as a result of the battle, then escaped from his room (Section II agents later discovered him in one of the obscure back hallways of NERV, curled up against the wall and sobbing). They had not wanted to send him back to the Katsuragi apartment, seeing as nobody occupied it now. Ritsuko had offered to take him in once she herself was discharged from the hospital, but that day had not yet come to pass, and everybody was privately against sending him to live with his father, who appeared (once again) to be completely indifferent to the feelings of his only son.

So they kept him at NERV. And nobody dared mention the transplant.

The entire situation was a considerable, unexpected setback.

Misato took the blame for the incident onto her shoulders, despite the fact that Ritsuko continually assured her that it would not have made any difference whether or not Shinji had known that Touji was the one inside the entry plug. Shinji himself had said so, in one of his calmer moods. The Major's wounds had healed well, but she paid little attention to her health these days—there were more pressing issues on the horizon.

Asuka passed Shinji's room and knocked lightly on his door with her good hand. No response. She inched it open and saw that it was empty.

_Maybe he went to the bathroom._

But when he still hadn't shown up four hours later, Misato began to worry, and the Section II agents were dispatched once again. Asuka watched them leave through her hospital window.

* * *

Hikari preferred to shop in the mornings, but today was so cold that she had held off until the afternoon. She frowned upon reaching the market. Suzuhara-kun had not come to school for a few weeks now, and she had instead been forced to distribute his lunch out to other classmates. 

She examined the variously sized bags of rice, picked the largest that she could possibly carry, and enlisted the help of the clerk in loading it into her cart. Hikari jerked a plastic bag from the roll hanging over her head and placed three ripe cucumbers into it. The bag of rice began to worry her – what if she could not get it all the way home? The roads were wet and slushy, and she did not wish to be completely soaked. She plucked a bag of pre-packaged carrots from the stack and wheeled her cart toward the cashier.

"Are you sure you can handle it, miss?"

"I certainly hope so," Hikari replied, trying to keep the strain out of her voice. The bag was so large that she could barely see over the top when it was safely nestled in her arms, the other vegetables hanging in a bag from her wrist.

Just as she made her way out onto the sidewalk, a car splashed through a puddle and drenched her in muddy water. Hikari sighed helplessly and kept walking, forced to determine her location by looking out at either side instead of in front of her. Fortunately, she did not have to worry about bumping into others since few people were out due to the cold.

For that reason, she noticed someone coming in her direction on the opposite side of the road. He was tall and lanky, wearing only thin clothes, and Hikari felt a twinge of pity as she watched him make his way down the road slowly, against the wind. The pity, however, soon turned to fright as he tripped and fell facefirst into the snow, where he lay immobile.

Hikari dropped her groceries and ran across the street. She dropped to her knees next to him and shook his shoulder vigorously, while shouting, "Are you all right, sir?"

"done… terrible…"

Hikari could not make out his words, but his voice was vaguely familiar. She paused, scarcely daring to believe it. "Ikari?"

"…terrible… things…"

_Where is this NERV security that Asuka always talks about?_ Hikari mused angrily. She tugged at Shinji's arm, but he made no effort to get up.

"Please, Shinji!" she found herself shouting. A car drove past them, the driver taking no notice of the children in the snow. "Please get up!"

His eyes fluttered open briefly. "Class Rep?"

"Yes, it's me." Hikari breathed a sigh of relief. _So he's not completely delirious or frozen, but he will be soon if he stays like this!_ "Please get up… you can come to my house and get warm! Just don't stay in the snow like this!"

After what seemed like an eternity and much straining of Hikari's muscles, the boy got slowly to his feet. The Class Representative led him cautiously across the road over to her fallen groceries, which she picked up before continuing the journey home.

Shinji leaned on her for support. Hikari began to tell him not to do that, as she was covered in mud and would ruin his clothes, but one glance at him reminded her that he, too, was soaked. He didn't speak all the way home, and she said nothing either. The weight of the rice was forgotten.

Nozomi opened the door for them. Her eyes widened and she shouted, "I knew it! I knew it! Hikari's got a boyfriend!"

"Shut up," Hikari hissed. Shinji, however, didn't react at all, so Hikari took the opportunity to throw her groceries into her younger sister's arms and lead her classmate into the house.

"Hik—"

"Look," Hikari whispered fiercely, "I don't know what's wrong with him, but it's pretty darn obvious he needs some help. Now go put the rice away."

Nozomi, surprised at this attitude, nodded and began lugging the rice toward the kitchen. Shinji's shoes were caked with snow and his fingers were much too stiff to untie them, so Hikari got them off for him and with effort, managed to coax him up the stairs.

_I'll sweep away the snow we tracked in later,_ she thought, _but where am I going to put Shinji? Nozomi and Kodama won't think of having him in their beds—and Dad will go crazy if he finds a guy in my bed—I guess he can stay in Dad's bed for the time being, and I'll get new sheets and blankets on there tonight—_

But no sooner had Hikari entered the room than she realized she had another problem on her hands, one that was much worse than deciding where he would rest. She could not allow Shinji to sleep in his wet clothes, and she—well, she was not about to redress him. Hikari compromised by finding some of her father's old clothes, handing them to him, and excusing herself out of the room.

"Who is he?" Nozomi pressed as her older sister appeared in the kitchen doorway. "And before you ask, yes I put the rice in the pantry, and yes I put the cucumbers and carrots in the refrigerator."

"He's a classmate." Hikari set some water on to boil and removed a small vial of tealeaves from an overhead cabinet. She waited for the water to heat, then steeped the tea in a ceramic cup. "Where's Kodama?"

"She went out shopping with her friends."

_Typical, _Hikari thought. She opened the refrigerator and wished that she had some muffins to heat up, but she hadn't thought to make any that morning. Well, she could start that now. Hikari poured out some cornmeal, broke in an egg, and carried the bowl upstairs with her, mixing as she climbed the stairs.

"Shinji?"

No answer.

_Well, changing shouldn't have taken him more than ten minutes. Or maybe he's still standing there in wet clothes._

_At any rate, if he started putting on dry clothes, he should be done now, so I won't have to see him… naked…_

"I'm coming in, Shinji."

Hikari took a deep breath and pushed open the door.

Shinji was wearing the dry clothes, all right, but his wet clothes had been awkwardly wadded into a pile as if he had not known what to do with him. He himself was huddled on the ground, against the wall, with his knees to his chest. He was muttering unintelligibly again.

After much tugging and pleading, Shinji got to his feet and Hikari helped him into the bed.

"I've done… terrible things," he muttered thickly.

"Shh, it will be all right," she promised, pulling the covers up to his chin. He did not speak again, and she left him as he was, trusting that he would stay.

Downstairs, Nozomi asked compassionately, "How is he?"

"Confused," Hikari murmured vaguely. She set the bowl on the table and preheated the oven—_I should have done that earlier_, she thought, mentally chastising herself. _Well, if Shinji falls asleep, there'll be plenty of time._

She made her way to the phone and dialed Asuka's number from memory.

Two rings…

Three…

Hikari's heart sank. Perhaps they were out looking for him?

Five…

She wished she knew Asuka's cell phone number, but she had never needed to contact Asuka so urgently.

Nine…

Hikari hung up. Nozomi watched her from the kitchen table, where she had finished her snack of cookies and was already pouring the batter into the pan. Her eyes followed her older sister as she searched through Shinji's soaked jacket in narrow hopes of finding his cell phone.

Nothing.

_Well, I guess I'll have to wait until Asuka comes home._

"Thank you, Nozomi," she said quietly, slipping the tray into the oven. Now there was nothing to do besides wait.

* * *

Shinji awoke in the dark, still shaking from the dream that robbed him nightly of tranquil sleep. He was screaming… Touji was screaming… His father was ordering him to kill his friend… Misato was crying… 

He shook his head to clear out the voices and focused instead on his current situation. He was in a warm bed, one which he did not deserve, and wearing dry clothes that he did not particularly deserve either. He could not remember why he was here, but he remembered leaving NERV. Out of anger, despair, or guilt, he did not know which. Perhaps a mixture of the three.

Shinji put both feet on the carpeted floor and slowly got to his feet. The clothes were several sizes too large for him, but kept him sufficiently warm as he opened the door to his room. There was no light in the hallway either, so he felt his way down the stairs. The railing was smooth and cool in his warm hand.

Hikari was sitting at the table reading, a steaming cup of tea in front of her. Without meaning to, Shinji sneezed, and Hikari jumped up.

"S-sorry…"

"Don't be," Hikari assured him, hastening to pour him a cup of tea. She popped two corn muffins into the microwave and leaned against the counter while she waited for them to warm. "Shinji… you look awfully red…have you got a fever?"

"I don't th-th-think—" Shinji's sentence was interrupted by a sneeze.

Hikari found a quilt to drape around his shoulders while he drank the tea and found a thermometer, instructing him to hold it under his arm for ten minutes.

"Thanks," he muttered thickly as Hikari took a seat opposite him.

"You don't need to be thanking me, Shinji," Hikari insisted. She warmed her hands around her cup. "By the way, I've called … and Asuka wasn't home. Do you know her cell phone number?"

Shinji's hand slowly began to quaver. The mug fell from his hand and sank to the table, where it continued to roll until its handle brought it to a stop, spilling its contents all over the wooden table. Hikari grabbed a towel and began wiping it up

"I've… I've done something…" he whispered, not bothering to hide his tears as they streamed unchecked down his cheeks.

"Why don't you tell me about it?" Hikari urged gently. "You'll feel better once you get it out."

"I've… I've…"

The door burst open behind them and Hikari, albeit usually calm in any situation, let out a shriek. Several men in black entered the house, followed by a weary-looking Mr. Horaki.

"Hikari…"

The agents came to Shinji's side and handcuffed him, then led him out of the house. As he was being brought through the doorway, the Third Child looked to the Class Representative with deeply troubled eyes and murmured, "Touji…"

Hikari could only mumble, "What?"

Mr. Horaki closed the door behind him and focused on his middle child. "Hikari… what's going on?"

She could only reply, "I don't know."

* * *

Author's Notes: Either three shorter chapters or two long ones left to go (I haven't quite decided yet). I'm sorry this one ended up dragging a bit – I might split the next chapter into two shorter parts to avoid having that happen again. 

I fiddled a lot with this Angel attack, much more than the last one – several scenes have been rearranged and no longer occur when they do in the series, and I've completely changed others to fit the scheme of this story. I decided to cut out everything relating to the mystery behind the Marduk Institute, etc. because as important as it is in the series, it doesn't quite relate to this story. Oh, and the chemistry project—I really have no good reason for putting that in here besides the fact that I was working on some chem before I turned to this chapter (same with DeMoivre's Theorem).

Again, my apologies for any biological inaccuracies.


	6. assiduity

"Don't push him."

These were words that Misato repeated at least twice daily, usually with her eyes closed.

"We don't have time."

Those were words that Namika growled at least twice daily, usually with a face lined with frustration.

And Ritsuko was on the receiving end of both.

_Don't push him_—well, that was excellent advice, as they certainly didn't want him to run off again, but the consequences were not at all feasible. _We don't have time_—well, that too was growing increasingly clear, but strapping Shinji down on a table by force and drawing out his bone marrow was not appealing either.

She passed her few moments of spare time in the Japanese garden of the NERV hospital, which was beginning to show some furry buds despite the bitterly cold weather. Ritsuko squatted on a dry rock beside the frozen waterfall, tucking a stray tendril of hair behind her ear.

She didn't know what Gendo had said to his son. Ritsuko remembered the first time that Shinji had run away, after his initial piloting experiences. He was an eccentric one, that was for sure; nevertheless, he had come far in the last half year. To think that it all might have been a waste, that he would run away again…

"Ritsuko."

Namika was bundled up in a large brown overcoat, almost all of her face hidden beneath the fake-fur lined hood. Her eyes were downcast, her dark eyelashes coated with frosted moisture, and Ritsuko could only think of one word to describe them; bleak, devoid of any happiness.

"He's staying," she informed the blonde doctor. The coat muffled her voice and the wind snatched away at the remaining sound.

"He doesn't _want _to stay."

Namika said nothing. They both knew it was true.

"Sometimes—" Ritsuko broke off, looking into the distance beyond the trees. There was a loud screech as somebody slammed on their brakes on the road, then a series of angry beeps. She blinked and looked at her feet, clad in the usual black heels. "…I wish I could just take him by the shoulders and shake some sense into him."

Namika reached up with a gloved hand and drew her hood down a bit so that she could speak audibly.

"Did you know Misato went to visit the Fourth's sister?"

"No."

Namika recounted the story as she had watched from the doorway.

* * *

"_You're Sorhyu Asuka Langley. My brother told me about you."_

_Misato tugged consciously at her hair and laughed at the girl's condescending tone. "No, I'm not Asuka. This is a wig, see?"_

"_Oh." Michika Suzuhara's eyes widened as if she were suddenly terrified of being in the presence of a stranger. "Who are you, then?"_

"_I'm Misato Katsuragi. Did your brother tell you about me too?"_

"_He said you had pretty purple hair. Where is it?"_

"_Well, it's all gone now," Misato told her, and she could not keep the note of wistfulness out of her voice. "I'm getting treatment for cancer. It makes your hair fall out."_

_Michika considered this. "So you're a patient here too?"_

"_Yes."_

"_Like me?"_

"_Yes."_

_The little girl smiled, immediately warming up. She plucked an old faded stuffed animal from beneath her blanket and held it up to Misato proudly. "This is Mai!"_

"_She's beautiful," Misato told her, reaching over to stroke the bear's head affectionately. "When I was your age I didn't have any stuffed animals. I liked to play with paper dolls."_

"_I don't like paper dolls," Michika said candidly, and then in a grown-up tone added, "They tear very easily."_

"_That's true. Where did you get Mai?"_

_Michika held the bear close to her, burying her face in its fur. She did not look at Misato as she said quietly, "My mommy bought her for me."_

_Misato remembered the Fourth Child file that Ritsuko had shown her and felt guilty for instigating the memory of their mother._

"_Do you know Shinji?" Michika asked, steering the subject away. "Shinji Ikari?"_

"_Yes, he lives with me."_

"_Touji said he could save your life," Mika whispered with large eyes, as if she were telling Misato a poignant secret. "Is that true?"_

"_Well…yes…it is." _

_She thought quickly, trying to find a way to simplify the complicated biology behind it all to a point where the little girl would be neither confused nor bored, but Michika was satisfied with that answer. She hugged her bear again and proclaimed proudly, "Someday I want to be a doctor, so I can save people too."

* * *

_

Valentine's Day.

It was lunchtime. Asuka discovered a large stack of valentines in her box from boys—some she knew, some she didn't, but it made no difference—she threw them all away without a glance. Only one piece of paper held her attention, the one she clenched in her hand now, and it had not come from her mailbox.

She opened her hand. The red ink had stained her palm. Gingerly she unfolded it.

Names: Sorhyu Asuka Langley, Suzuhara Touji

Project: Nuclear Chemistry

Grade: 105

Despite the grade, she felt absolutely no elation at seeing it.

"Miss Sorhyu."

Asuka crushed the paper in her hand and composed herself as she whirled around to face the speaker. She didn't recognize him. He reached out and took her hand, placing in it a large heart-shaped chocolate wrapped with pink tin foil. Asuka was temporarily too shocked to reply, as none of the boys had been so bold.

"I… I don't want it… I've…"

He simply bowed and left her standing there.

"GAHH!"

Asuka smashed the rounded part of the chocolate at the metal locker. Apparently the candy was solid throughout, as it developed hardly a dent. Asuka tossed it into her bag and returned to her desk, removing a standard gray lunchbox with the word NERV stamped across the front. She missed Shinji's lunches, but food was the last thing on Shinji's mind nowadays.

Hikari sat beside her, eating in conscious little bites. She kept her eyes focused on her bento and did not speak. Asuka glanced at her and noticed that her lower lip wavered hesitantly before each bite.

"Eat this," she ordered, pushing the heart-shaped chocolate at her friend. "It'll make you feel better."

Hikari laid down her chopsticks and touched her napkin to her lips, but left the chocolate.

"He doesn't like me, Asuka. He never will now. He… he doesn't think he's worth anything anymore." Her eyes filled dangerously. "He wanted to me to tell his sister that he was fine. He—" Hikari's voice broke and she fumbled for words. Asuka, in a moment of humane compassion, reached out and let the Class Representative cry on her shoulder.

"They'll be able to sort him out," she said bracingly. "Think about all the injuries Shinji and Wonderg—Rei's gone through."

"Shinji's never lost a leg, has he?" Hikari whispered savagely. A moment later she quickly added, "I don't care if he never plays basketball again, if he never wins another race—he's still… Suzuhara…" Tears leaked from both eyes and she blotted at them with the back of her hand. "But I can't make him see that…"

Asuka didn't know what to say, so she remained silent. Hikari picked up the broken conversation again, quietly venturing, "Speaking of Shinji, how's he doing?"

"He's—" Asuka broke off abruptly, having been about to call him the usual names. "He's doing fine. He would probably have wandered into some alley and frozen to death if you didn't take him in that day…thanks..."

Hikari's head moved ever so slightly. Asuka took it to be a small chuckle.

When the bell rang again to signal the start of class, Asuka was still quietly stroking Hikari's hair. The latter held back a sniffle, quickly sat up and announced, "Rise… bow… sit!"

She sat back down and smiled bravely at Asuka, who returned the gesture, feeling oddly grateful that Shinji had not been injured nearly as badly as Touji.

* * *

"Unfamiliar ceiling…"

Shinji grasped a wad of white bedsheet tightly in his fist, then let it fall. There was no point in giving him a stereotypical hospital room when he wasn't physically ill; he had instead been placed in a small windowless room just off the main hospital corridor. It was simple—bed, toilet, bare walls and floor. Shinji could not understand why such a room had been built into the building, except for the purposes of keeping runaway pilots such as himself within NERV control.

_Runaway pilot_.

_That's what you are_.

"So what if I ran away?" Shinji muttered dully to himself. "I'm back, aren't I? I'm back to be exploited by my father."

…_but you ran away again…_

Shinji held his forehead in his hands as Asuka's face swam into view.

_Baka! You're always running away from things! Why don't you act like a man and learn to face them?_

Her angry expression, accented by the jabbing finger, melted into Rei'scalm, emotionless face. She uttered only one word.

_Ikari…_

Her face disappeared in turn and was replaced by Kensuke's, one eye hidden behind the camera.

_Hey, Shinji! Do you think Misato-san will let me pilot it? I'd be a good pilot! Will you ask her for me?_

"You don't understand," Shinji raged through clenched teeth at the Kensuke in his mind. "You have absolutely… no … damn idea… what it's like… to have your hands manipulated, to kill your best friend!"

He was shouting now, tears streaming down his face, but he no longer cared. Shinji slammed his fist against the wall, half hoping that it would give way to his anger, but the granite absorbed it and remained silent. He punched it again, this time the knuckles making direct contact. The crack resounded around the room.

"Don't tell me… you _want_ to pilot that… that thing…"

Breathing heavily, Shinji backed away from the wall, rubbing his sore hand. Unfortunately, he was none too aware of the lamp nearby, and a moment later crashed into it. The lamp toppled to the ground and smashed, its dim lightbulb breaking into glass shards on the floor and draping Shinji in darkness.

"Dammit…"

He felt his way to the bed, still angry, and turned away from the broken lamp. He was suddenly cold; the shouting had taken the energy out of him. Shinji drew the thin blanket over himself and curled up into a ball, unable to desist shivering, forcibly reminding himself of the wretched hours he had spent at Hikari's house before NERV agents had overtaken him.

_Why don't you tell me about it? You'll feel better once you get it out._

"Liar," Shinji whispered, his fists clenched. Even as he did so, he knew it wasn't fair of him to say such things; Hikari had clearly done her best by him.

He lay there in silence and darkness, unaware of time. When somebody opened the door and cautiously called out his name, he chose to remain motionless and pretended to be asleep.

* * *

Rei had been largely ignored in the last few weeks. She did not mind, of course; for much of her life, she had been treated so, and she welcomed the chance to simply observe.

Pilot Sorhyu was not happy. She knew this from the nightly walks that she took to clear her mind whenever sleep did not come to her. She knew what the girl had allowed few others to know; she had heard the Second's tearful mumblings as she dreamt of her mother. Nowadays, however, her talk took on other tones and subjects—she worried in her sleep over topics that she did not discuss in consciousness; many times Rei had heard Misato and Pilot Ikari's names mentioned. She was also perfectly aware that there seemed to be a budding relationship between Pilot Sorhyu and Pilot Ikari that was never able to develop due to circumstances beyond their control.

_He is not Pilot Ikari now, _Rei reminded herself placidly, as she walked slowly down the hallway. She stripped away the title.

_Ikari. Just Ikari._

A nurse passed her in the hallways, hurrying, always hurrying; she paid the blue-haired girl no attention and Rei did the same to her. The nurses did not mind her nightly walks, as long as she was in bed and ready for her daily checkup and bath.

Rei looked at her left hand. It bore no bandages now and showed no signs of damage unless she tried to move it. She had still not regained full function in her left arm and the therapists continued to insist upon physical exercises, performed on a daily basis. Rei found them repetitive and tedious, but she did them, as she was ordered to.

She came to the miniscule waiting room. NERV liked to keep its functions secret and therefore did not encourage large numbers of family members to crowd its hospital while a relative underwent an operation. However, it had an enormous glass window that made up all of one side, and Rei had often liked to look outside and think to herself over her daily observations. She preferred to come at night, when the lights were turned off and there were no glares from the light bulbs on the glass panes. Tonight she pressed her good hand against the window and instinctively flexed her other hand. It tired after only two repetitions, and she was uncomfortably aware that some fingers were more sensitive than others. It occurred to her that as long as these symptoms remained, she would stay in the NERV hospital. Normally The Commander would not have ordered it so, but as the Second and—Ikari—were already staying, there would be no harm in keeping the First as well.

She heard voices outside but did not move. They would not come to chase her out. Rei looked through the open door and saw from the lady's silhouette that it was the doctor in charge of Misato's case.

She knew, of course, that Ikari had become somewhat of a recluse since being retrieved from Class Representative Horaki's home. What she had observed, however, was that the doctor appeared to have abandoned hope for Ikari and resorted instead to The Commander. Rei assumed that this was due to the fact that time was rapidly running out, and she felt a burning knot of misery and annoyance in her stomach that she could not be the one to save Misato.

The glass was cold. Rei pulled her hand away. It was mid-March, she remembered. The days would start to grow soon.

But hope for Misato did not.

And then there was the everlasting threat of an impending Angel attack.

Rei sat down beside the glass and pulled her legs to her chest. Her left arm ached dully and she massaged the shoulder joint with her other hand, glancing sideways through the window as she did so. In the darkness there was nothing except for a dark smudge of treetops and above that, a few glimmering stars.

* * *

Water. He'd forgotten to fill up his water bottle, dammit. Not that he didn't forget a lot of things recently.

Shinji climbed sideways out of his bed and swiped the plastic bottle off the bedside table. It was gray and wrapped in a standard sheet of gray foam with the letters NERV stamped across it horizontally in darker gray. Shinji covered the word with his hand, then ambled over to the fountain on the other side of the room. It was broken and made churning sounds when he pressed the button. He sighed, turned, and decided that his only alternative was the water fountain on the other end of the hallway.

He had taken only a few steps when he heard it—

"Ikari Shinji!"

Shinji whirled around, the high-pitched feminine voice taking him by surprise. It couldn't be Misato – her room was in the other hallway, and Asuka would never call him in such a format manner.

Who else then?

He was still standing in the hallway, perplexed, when the voice called out again, this time tentatively—"Shinji-kun?"

Shinji held his breath and poked his head into the nearest room. A little girl of no more than six waved back eagerly at him.

"Shinji-kun! I knew it was you! My brother told me all about you!"

"Y-your brother?"

And then it hit him. This was _Touji's sister_. Touji's dark hair, his brown eyes, his thick eyebrows, softened to fit a young female face.

"Sit," Michika pointed commandingly to the bench, but quickly added, "please?"

Something told Shinji that she just might start crying if he didn't, so he did—albeit reluctantly.

"You go to school with my brother."

"Err…yeah…"

"And you work with him."

"Yeah."

Michika lapsed into silence. Shinji waited, already dreading her next question. He knew that Touji had asked Hikari not to tell his sister of his circumstances…_if she asks me_, Shinji thought desperately, _I won't tell her either…_

"I have a question."

"Go ahead…"

Michika leaned close. "Is—" she paused to make sure the words rolled off her tongue properly: "—Sorhyu Asuka Langley as mean as Touji says she is?"

"No," Shinji said impulsively. "Well…"

"Touji says she hit him!" Michika whispered, her eyes wide as saucers.

"Well, yes… she hit me too…"

"Then she _must_ be mean!" Michika crossed her arms, ending the discussion.

Shinji, who was fervently hoping that Asuka wouldn't happen to pass by and hear the conversation, felt that he ought to defend the Second—but he couldn't find anything to say, so he remained silent.

Michika, sensing his reluctance, quickly piped up, "Misato came to visit me yesterday!"

_Misato._

The word sent an uncomfortable shiver throughout Shinji's body.

_Misato—_

—_leukemia—_

—_blood testing— _

—_bone marrow—_

—_d—_

"I heard you're the only one that can save her," Michika said matter-of-factly.

—_save her—_

"You haven't changed your mind, have you? My brother says—"

—_her life_—

"—a good boy who always tried to help others—"

_Touji._

"_Misato-san sure is pretty, huh?"_

"_I bought this cap just for today, Misato-san!" _

"Shinji-kun?"

Shinji looked up into Michika's big, round brown eyes, filled with worry.

"Yeah," he muttered, "I have to go."

* * *

Namika was testing samples with the help of an assistant when the door burst open. The assistant screamed, and Namika scolded her for losing her head.

"You could've lost the samples," she reprimanded. "Yes, …Pilot Ikari."

"I'm not the Third Child anymore," Shinji ground out through clenched teeth. "Don't address me like that—"

The curtain behind the doctor rustled, and The Commander stepped out, robed only loosely in a blue-and-white hospital gown. The classic gloves and glasses were gone, yet his stare remained; the scene would have almost been comical had the situation not been so tense.

"Why are you here?"

"Because—because I have to save Misato," Shinji breathed hurriedly. He was suddenly very panicked; he was sure that time was running out—already he had wasted several weeks. _What a stupid question!_ He wanted to push his father aside and plead his case instead with the doctor, but she hovered behind The Commander, afraid to interfere—

"And your piloting duties?"

It took a moment for the question to register in Shinji's mind, but his response came automatically, as if everything besides the transplant was controlled by autopilot.

"I'm _not _piloting anymore."

Pause.

It was apparent to Namika that The Commander was clearly displeased with his son, and it seemed that he was weighing two consequences in his mind—allowing his son to stay solely for the purpose of rescuing his prized Major, and sending him away in order to concentrate all NERV authority in finding a replacement pilot. Misato herself had said that pilots were replaceable, after all… but good Majors were not. A muscle tensed in his cheek, and Namika prepared herself for his proclamation.

None came. He simply nodded to her and stepped out of the room.

"Dr. Ishiyama?" Her assistant broke the silence tentatively. "The samples—they need to be refrigerated—"

Namika looked down and realized that she had tightened her grip considerably on the vial, bringing up its temperature. She sighed and tossed it into the biohazard box.

"Now that he's here, we won't need that sample anyway. Shinji—"

"Yes?"

His words were tripping over hers in hastened desperation. Namika breathed, thanking the Lord for this unexpected good fortune, and forced herself to calm down. There was a calendar posted just behind Shinji's left ear and she focused on one block of the page, labeled March 26.

"We can't do it right now?" Shinji asked, looking crestfallen as he read her mind.

Namika shook her head. "We need to get Misato restarted on a chemotherapy course first—_crisantaspase_ or _mercaptopurine_, Misumi—" the assistant hurried away into the back room: "—for at least a week. Let's set the date of the transplant for March 26."

"That's…nine days away," Shinji said. "You think she'll last that long?"

The assistant returned and placed a small package into Namika's outstretched hand.

"Yes, I do."

Shinji turned to leave, but paused just beside the door.

"Please… hurry."

* * *

"I'm proud of you, Third."

Shinji didn't feel like telling her to drop the Third. They were gathered in Asuka's room, sitting on her bed. Her room was smaller than his and didn't have a water fountain, functioning or not. He traced a pattern on the bed sheet.

"It is I, Sorhyu Asuka Langley, who is speaking to you—why aren't you acting more happy?" Asuka asked, a weak attempt to humor the statement that had before drawn fear and shame from the boy sitting in front of her. Instead of shying away, Shinji smiled, and Asuka did so in return.

"You know that I'm not going to pilot again," he said, without meeting her eyes.

"Suit yourself." She looked away. "Do whatever pleases you, Third—I mean, Shinji." Asuka paused. "You've done enough for others."

"I haven't done anything," Shinji mumbled, confused by this statement.

"Yes you have. You tutored me in Japanese. You cooked and cleaned after us without complaint. And you're going to save Misato. Think of yourself, for once."

"Er… okay…"

Asuka sighed, took him by the shoulders, and wheeled him around to face her. "Shinji—no, look at me—now, tell me: after Misato's well again, what's the first thing you want to do?"

Shinji looked at the depth of her blue eyes and blushed.

Asuka shook him. "Tell me, dammit!"

He took a gamble. "I-I want to go somewhere with you."

Her hands dropped from his shoulders.

"I-It's not like that!" Shinji's hands flew up in protest. "Well, maybe it is… but you don't have to go if you don't want to, really! Forget I said—"

"Don't be like that," she cut him off. "Of course I'm going—now where do you want to go?"

"I don't know…"

She shook him again.

"Uh, maybe out to dinner? Or a movie?"

"That sounds nice." She relaxed her grip. "Okay, now you've promised—no backing out!"

"Okay…"

There was a brief pause, and she changed the subject. "I want to go home, don't you?" Her tone became nostalgic as she folded her feet beneath her legs Indian-style. "I want to play that training game… I even miss Pen-pen, that damned penguin."

"Who's taking care of him now?"

"Hikari. By the way, she dropped by yesterday and brought you this." Asuka reached into the small leather purse she kept on her bedside table and pulled out Shinji's SDAT. Shinji took it gratefully from her and quickly turned it on. Asuka took one of the earphones from him while requesting, "Mind if I listen?"

"No."

Asuka lay back, forcing Shinji to mimic her motions as the headphones were connected—she wore one in her right ear, and Shinji the other in his left. The sound was mellow and made her ache for Germany. She snuggled closer to Shinji and placed her head against his shoulder. If he noticed or minded, he had no reaction.

_Du weißt, ich werde immer ehrlich zu dir sein_

_Und du weißt, ich bin derjenige_

_An den du dich wenden kannst_

_Jederzeit, überall und irgendwo_

_Du weißt, ich werde immer da sein

* * *

_

"Please sit down."

Namika had not expected him to bring the girl, and for some reason this annoyed her. Of course, her own experiences and Ritsuko's descriptions had left a firm impression in her mind that the Second was nothing short of, well, irritating.

She took a seat beside him and focused intently on the doctor.

"I'd like to begin by first asking you if you have any questions, Shinji."

He shook his head, but the Second took the initiative, laying her hand on the table.

"What are the chances of success?"

Namika reined her frustration and made eye contact with Shinji instead. "Given the fact that you're not related to Misato, your HLA markings are remarkably similar and indicate a good chance of success. However, there are many other factors that can affect Misato's post-surgical recovery—for example, her immune system will be completely eliminated in order to impede rejection of your bone marrow, so for those days she'll be very susceptible to disease."

Shinji nodded, but the girl frowned and said, "You haven't really answered my question, Doctor."

Namika glared at her. "60."

She nodded.

Deciding that she would only elicit more questions from the Second if she allowed them to voice their concerns, Namika swept into a general explanation of the allogeneic transplant. Her hands moved rapidly in abstract gestures; Shinji nodded repeatedly, but the girl had no expression on her face. Namika plowed on. It was Shinji, not her, after all, who was going to be the donor.

"The procedure will be the same as the one Misato had, right?"

"Yes," Namika said matter-of-factly, pleased now that Shinji was saying something. "There's no surgery involved—just a few punctures, and you'll be under general anesthesia. You'll probably be sore for a few days. We'll have pain medication on hand."

Shinji nodded again. "I remember."

"Good." The doctor glanced at her watch. "It's March 20 today. I want you to stay in the hospital, Shinji, while I run a couple of tests to make sure that everything's in order."

"Yes ma'am."

"That's all, if you have no more questions."

Namika voiced her last comment with apprehension, expecting the Second to respond. Instead, the two pilots—no, Shinji was no longer a pilot, she reminded herself—rose in unison from their chairs. Shinji thanked her. Namika said it was no problem. She watched as they slipped unnoticed into the quiet hallway and watched with surprise as Asuka leaned over and gently took Shinji's hand into her own.

* * *

Rei was elated.

It didn't show in her steps as she climbed evenly up the stairs to her room. Her left fingers locked tightly over her schoolbag, and her sensible shoes made hardly a sound on the granite surface, but she allowed the faintest of smiles to grace the curve of her lips.

She had been officially discharged from the hospital—but they were keeping Ikari in order to run a battery of tests on him.

_Ikari,_ Rei thought. _Not Pilot Ikari anymore. Just Ikari_.

But it didn't matter, because it was all going to work out. He was going to save Misato after all.

Tomorrow.

Rei turned her doorknob and entered, ignoring the various envelopes with "Postmarked March 25" stamped on them as they fell from her cluttered box to the floor. Nothing but advertisements—nobody sent her mail. She headed straight for her bed and removed her shoes, then stretched on the faded sheets.

_I am lucky to be home. Ikari does not have that pleasure_.

She lay on her back for some time, listening to the traffic through her open window.

Her gaze fell eventually on the clock—it was nearly six, so Rei clambered off the bed and headed to the kitchen to begin the process of making dinner. She was used to cooking simple meals for herself, but she had not done it many days, and tonight she was not particularly hungry…

She decided instead that Ikari did not deserve the miserable hospital meals he would be getting tomorrow after the transplant.

So she cooked for him.

There was nothing unspoiled in the refrigerator besides potatoes and rice. She peeled potatoes while standing at the sink, sweeping the dark peel away from the white flesh in long strips. Her hand slipped on the handle of the potato peeler and it fell to the ceramic floor with a clatter; Rei picked it up and washed it, feeling eerily as if someone were watching her.

"So you can actually cook. I'm impressed."

Rei knew who it was before she turned around, but it was still a surprise to see Pilot Sorhyu standing in her doorway, leaning casually against the soiled wall.

"I forgot to close the door," Rei muttered. It was not an apology or a greeting; Rei did not really know what it was—just a comment made to fill the silence.

The Second came closer and inspected the various pots and pans laid over her counter. "Interesting… I couldn't really see you cooking so elaborately…"

Rei bit her lip. "I am cooking for Ikari."

"For Shinji?"

"Yes," Rei said, a faint heat creeping up into her cheeks. She did not like being put on the spot in this fashion—she knew that there were mutual feelings between the girl in front of her and her ex-fellow pilot, but she did not know how to make it clear that she did not like him in that way. Meekly she added, "I did not want for him to have to eat the hospital food."

Asuka's features softened. "Hey, I want to help… have you got any flour? Eggs? Fresh apples?"

Rei had none of any of the necessary ingredients, having not lived at home for over a month. Asuka picked up her bag and announced that she was going shopping.

_It is interesting…to have Pilot Sorhyu working in the kitchen as we prepare food for Ikari_, Rei thought as Asuka reentered her home only ten minutes later, laden down with two grocery sacks.

"Hey, your oven does work, right?"

Rei opened it for her, and Asuka peered suspiciously into its depths. It had apparently never been used, but she didn't see any reason why it wouldn't function properly. She took one of Rei's bowls and poured white flour into it, then mixed in a few spoonfuls of melted butter and an egg.

"Will the nurses not question your absence?" Rei asked gently. She placed her potatoes onto a cutting-board and cut slices of identical thickness.

Asuka shrugged. "I've been discharged too."

"I see."

Rei worked silently; while the potatoes simmered on the stove, she soaked a small pot of rice and set it to boil as well. It occurred to her that even if she herself was not hungry, Pilot Sorhyu would almost certainly expect to stay for a meal; and so she added some more rice to the pot.

Asuka raised her eyebrows. "I wasn't planning to eat here."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. You sound like Shinji, pre—pre—" Asuka gave up and let the comment hang as she reached for a napkin. "I'm making enough turnovers for all three of us."

Rei stood frozen to the spot. She had not expected Pilot Sorhyu to feed her—in her own kitchen!

"Pilot Sorhyu—"

Asuka whirled around. "Asuka. Just Asuka, okay? Ouch! Damn—"

She had cut her finger. Rei, who had no shortage of bandages, wrapped it up for her. Asuka thanked her meekly, and seeing that she was standing idle while her food cooked, mentioned the asparagus she had purchased and asked if Rei would like to help her with it.

Obediently, Rei cut the spears while Asuka fussed over her apple filling—and finally satisfied, slipped the pan into the preheated oven.

"You care about Shinji a lot, don't you?" Asuka asked, measuring out teaspoons of olive oil. "Or you wouldn't be going to all this trouble for him."

Flustered, Rei replied, "I care for him, yes… but not in the way that you do, Asuka…"

Asuka blinked. "I see." She paused, blinking again as if she were deep in thought—then returned to the oil, blushing and muttering softly to herself, "Yes, I guess I do care…" Her expression changed again as she quickly pulled over a plate. "Put the asparagus on here…and I think your potatoes are done."

Twenty minutes later, the two girls settled down to their meal. Rei was unused to what seemed such a lavish affair and did not know how to begin until Asuka reached into her grocery bag and pulled out a pack of disposable plastic containers. She filled one with asparagus and potatoes; following her example, Rei filled two more with rice and apple turnovers. The crisp crust crumbled under her fingertips. Asuka put the four containers in the refrigerator.

They sat on Rei's bed to eat, as the only table was dusty and covered with bloody bandages. Each balanced a plate on her lap, and neither spoke. Slowly, the sun lowered itself until it was no longer visible behind the edifices of Tokyo-3.

Asuka stood up reluctantly. "I should go."

Rei rose as well. "I will accompany you home."

"Don't—I'll be fine. Just don't forget Shinji's food tomorrow. And thanks for the meal."

"You're welcome."

The words were out of her mouth before she knew it. Rei was surprised at herself. _Had she really said it? 'You're welcome'?_

"So I'll see you first thing at the hospital tomorrow?"

"Yes, I will be there."

"See you then."

Rei waited until Asuka's footsteps were no longer audible on the steps. She closed the door slowly and locked it, then did the same with her windows. The room was suddenly devoid of excitement. Feeling as if she had just experienced a real treat which was now coming to an end, Rei made her way slowly to the bed, picked up the two empty plates, and headed for the kitchen.

* * *

Author's Note: Short chapter. I'm posting the rest of this story now, so not much to say in this note—just one thing: I know the summary has been bothersome in that it gives away a good part of the story, and I've gotten a good number of reviews asking me to change it. I've held out because I haven't wanted to hint at all at what would be coming in the last chapter(s), but the next part will be somewhat unpredictable—or so I hope. Anyway, I've added a small edit to the summary, hopefully not giving too much away.

The song that I used in this chapter is the German version of "The Gift" by Brosis. Having absolutely no knowledge of the German language other than the fact that "Seele" means "soul", I randomly selected a song and a stanza and had a German-speaking friend translate it for me. It comes out to something along the lines of "You know, I will always be honest with you, and you know, I am the one you can turn to, anytime, all over, anywhere, you know I will always be there…"

(I really did intend, once upon a time, to get the rest of this story churned out by March 26—my apologies, yet again.)


	7. demise

Namika had scheduled the transplant for eight, hoping to be completed by noon at the latest. She glanced at her watch again. It was seven forty-six.

Shinji was already being prepped by the nurses. Misato was in an isolated room, which contained its own air filter and was shut off from the world except for medical staff and equipment that had been thoroughly sterilized. She anticipated the extracting of Shinji's bone marrow to take no more than an hour, and less than two hours after that it would already be at work replacing Misato's.

She picked up her clipboard, frowning at it as she made some last-minute decisions, and headed down to Shinji's room. On the way, her cell phone rang, and she picked it up to hear Ritsuko's anxious voice.

"It's all going according to schedule," she assured her friend, who was staying within the Geofront. Namika knew that Ritsuko would have liked very much to have been in the hospital, but as she was not part of the medical staff there was not much that she could do. Besides, The Commander would not have NERV roll to a stop because of a bone marrow transplant.

The remaining two pilots were sitting in the waiting room as she passed. Asuka nodded in greeting, but the blue-haired girl wore no expression on her face. Four identical plastic containers sat on the coffee table in front of them.

Namika hurried on.

* * *

Seven forty-nine.

Ritsuko was expecting The Commander to lecture her for repeatedly glancing at her watch, but all the technicians were doing the same, and he chose today to ignore it.

Maya poured herself another cup of coffee and, without thinking, poured one for Ritsuko as well. The blonde doctor thanked her absentmindedly and took a sip. It was hotter than she had expected.

Seven fifty.

Makoto had pulled up the data from Asuka's last synchronization test and was repeatedly typing and deleting things so that no actual changes were made to the file. Maya sipped her coffee. Only Shigeru was doing anything of particular use—moving Shinji's files to a storage folder in the depths of the Magi, separate from those of Asuka and Rei.

Ritsuko could not resist the temptation to glance at the clock again. Seven fifty-two. She sipped her coffee.

Seven fifty-three.

"Sempai…"

"What?"

Maya beckoned her over. "Look at this…"

Ritsuko frowned, trying to decipher the blurry form behind the sketchy lines that restructured themselves each second based on the newest data. Makoto and Shigeru hurried over, crowding around Maya's computer for a glance at the screen. Ritsuko withdrew a pencil and pointed it at the indistinct shape.

"That can't be…"

But then the solemn, knowing screech cut through the Geofront, and NERV went into action.

Ritsuko closed her eyes, temporarily isolating herself from the world as she raged as the ridiculousness of the situation. There was no need to see the words "Pattern Blue" upon the Magi screen; she reached towards the pre-programmed button that would fire off automatic phone calls to their pilots—but never made it. A thundering blow shook the Geofront and knocked Ritsuko to the ground; Maya shrieked as her chair upturned. Glass smashed; for a moment all could be heard was static in the darkness; then, slowly, a dim yellow light filtered back into the room. Some sort of emergency system had kicked in.

The technicians scrambled to their places; Makoto slammed his palm down on the button. Maya typed furiously on her temporarily unresponsive keyboard, and Ritsuko hurried to her place behind her assistant as the Magi's mechanic voice issued reports.

For now, within the Geofront, the transplant was forgotten.

* * *

Shinji had managed to stay on the bed, but Dr. Ishiyama's nurses and assistants had not been so lucky; most the medical staff had been thrown against the wall and their equipment was scattered across the floor.

Namika cursed violently, searching the floor on hands and knees for her equipment. No luck.

"Dr. Ishiyama, perhaps we should cancel," one of the assistants voiced nervously.

"We're going to have to. We haven't got any electricity; without the machines we aren't going to be able monitor his body functions. We—"

Her cell phone rang.

Surprised, Namika plucked it off of the belt loop from which it hung and flicked open the cover. Nurses, assistants, and Shinji listened in dead silence as The Commander's voice echoed through the room.

"Continue the operation."

"But, Commander," Namika pressed, "we can't—"

"Continue."

There was a click, and Namika slowly lowered the phone.

"Dr. Ishiyama?"

It was hard enough to meet his eyes, but she was shocked to see them pleading with her. "Please, can we keep going with it?"

"You have to understand, Shinji, that if anything goes wrong—we won't have any medical technology to help you, just our hands," Namika said. It was against her doctor's intuition to let this happen; but the Commander had ordered it, and Shinji wanted it…

"I don't want Misato to have to wait any longer. Please?"

Namika breathed in and out, knowing her staff and patient were watching and depending on her.

"All right. Misumi, I want you to go check on Misato—Kameko, I'll need a couple of battery-powered flashlights." Namika tore off her surgical gloves, soiled from crawling on the floor in search of her tools. Another nurse was piling equipment on the cart. Namika tugged on a sterile pair of gloves and instructed the nurse to sterilize each piece of metallic equipment. The nurse nodded and went off in search of the necessary chemicals.

"I trust the IV will work just fine without electricity," Namika muttered, mostly to herself. The IV infusion pump, however, which controlled the dosage of anesthesia, would need batteries, and the doctor wasted a few frustrated moments rummaging through drawers to find some of the proper size. She pulled the contraption nearer to Shinji and held out the needle at the end of a long, flexible plastic tube. "I'm going to put this into your arm, and you'll be asleep in a few minutes. It'll last about an hour."

"All right."

She sat on the bedside and waited for her staff to return, not wanting to put in the line until everyone was ready with the proper equipment. That would take time, she knew—every piece of equipment would have to be manually sterilized not only to remove dirt and grime, but also to inactivate any pieces of nucleic acid or protein material that might have been picked up. In the meantime, she instructed Shinji to turn on his back so that they would have easy access to the iliac crest of his hip.

Namika worried. She worried about the safety of this procedure, when there would be no machines to monitor Shinji's body functions. She worried about Misato, who was surely fretting in her room—and whether or not she would be all right. She worried for Tokyo-3. And each worry brought her back to where she began: that there was nothing she could do but focus on saving her friend's life.

"Are you scared?" she asked Shinji. Hardly any light streamed in through the window, and a moment later both heard the clanking and characteristic _whoosh_ that signaled the deployment of an Evangelion half a mile away.

"No." As an afterthought, he added, "And I trust in Asuka and Rei."

Namika nodded, pleased, and patted his shoulder. "I'm proud of you."

Shinji nodded and blinked, unsure of how to react. He decided to stay quiet, and Namika did the same until her staff returned.

"We're ready, Dr. Ishiyama."

"Shinji, I'm going to put the IV in now," Namika informed him. Standard protocol required that she inform the patient of everything she was doing. "You'll probably feel a slight pinch when the needle goes in, so I'm going to numb the area first. Can you hold out your arm for me?"

She felt as if she were working in a third-world hospital, with one assistant handing her equipment and another holding the flashlight for her so that she could locate a vein. Shinji did not have hard-to-find veins, fortunately. The needle slid in deftly under the yellow glare of the flashlight. Shinji mumbled something, but it was not quite audible, and a moment later he was fast asleep.

Namika reached out a hand behind her. Someone tucked the correct piece of equipment into her hand, and she brought it under the light to make a few final adjustments. Satisfied, she placed a hand on Shinji's waist and positioned the needle.

She hesitated. Something didn't feel right.

"Doctor?"

She didn't know why—but something told her that she should not go on with the transplant, that something was not quite right. Her hand quivered and she turned abruptly to examine the IV. It was functioning properly, and in the dead silence, under the stares of her assistants, Namika suddenly felt very stupid. She bit her lip and did what she was there to do, ignoring the unpredictable quaking of Tokyo-3 as best as she could. It went smoothly, and less than five minutes later she was transferring the one and a half quarts of crimson marrow to a sterile bag—from there it would be transplanted into Misato's chest via a catheter.

She sealed the bag firmly and glanced at Shinji. Again, her staff was waiting for her to direct them. Unable to shake off the feeling that something was wrong, she ordered them to hook the patient up to the necessary machines as soon as the power came back on—which she hoped would happen soon.

"Come and get me in case anything happens," she instructed, "make sure Shinji's hooked up to the monitors as soon as the power comes back on; Misumi, get a small bandage to cover the puncture spot—"

There was a chorus of "Yes, Doctor"s from the room. Again Namika felt uncomfortable. They knew protocol—she did not need to remind them. She shook her head and hurried to Misato's.

* * *

Asuka was mad—mad because the Angel had picked a crummy time to attack, mad because she wouldn't be able to be there when Shinji and Misato woke up, and mad that the carefully designed plan for the day had just gone to hell. At that moment she didn't care about the fact that Angels did not operate on a schedule that suited humans—she intended only to slaughter it.

She glanced into the distance where Rei was waiting, in the damaged Unit 00. Neither said a word.

Asuka slapped the dashboard with her palm.

Ritsuko's face appeared in a mini electronic panel on her side. "Asuka, that won't help. Don't worry about Shinji now. We need you to concentrate on defeating the angel."

"What do you think I'm doing?" she seethed angrily.

Ritsuko ignored her, shutting off the control window instead, and this made her all the angrier; Asuka's fingers tightened into a fist and she grumbled under her breath.

It was coming. She braced herself and replaced her hands on the red controls of Evangelion Unit 02. Her eyes narrowed. Several hundred meters away, Rei watched in silence… with a tinge of fear.

_I will not fail_, Asuka thought. _Even if Shinji isn't here_.

But that was not how things were to be.

* * *

It was ridiculous, trying to carry out a transplant under such conditions—the ground shook again as Namika ran down the hallway, grateful that she was not wearing heels as Ritsuko always did—nevertheless, she slipped to the ground and broke the fall with her shoulder. The doctor scrambled to her feet and examined the bag. Fortunately, there were no leaks.

Her heart sank as she neared Misato's room. No electricity meant no machines, and no such machines meant that they could not filter the marrow to remove T-cells, a process which would greatly decrease the risk of rejection. Modern medicine was hopelessly dependent on electricity and machines. She would have to hope that rejection could be suppressed in the imminent future using powerful drugs.

Her assistant arrived momentarily, and both re-scrubbed and donned clean surgical gloves. Neither spoke; both were too busy focusing on the task at hand. Upon entering the room, the first thing that Namika noticed was that Misato's curtains were wide open and she was sitting in bed with her neck strained, attempting to catch a glimpse of what was going on. Dim light filtered in and a second assistant quickly arrived with a flashlight.

"We don't know either, but he wanted us to keep going with the transplant," Namika informed her. They made a small incision in her chest to insert the catheter (unlike Shinji's, Misato's procedure involved a bit of surgery but required only local anesthesia). Both doctor and assistant breathed a sigh of relief when they saw the red liquid slowly dripping into Misato's chest. Misato herself remained distraught, muttering all the while to herself with a glazed look in her eyes.

"They'll have deployed Units 02 and 00… except that reconstruction on Unit 00 hasn't been completed yet, but 01 will reject her… and with no electricity they'll be operating on that inconsistent backup system …"

"Misato," Namika begged, watching the catheter nervously, "please calm down."

But that was not to happen, as the ground shook again and Namika fought to keep the IV system and bed in place. Her assistant screamed, and a moment later Namika realized why; the windowpanes had shattered, and they were now face-to-face with none other than the head of Unit 02.

Just the head.

"Misumi, close the curtains," Namika ordered.

The girl cowered and Namika, driven over the edge, lost her patience.

"CLOSE THE CURTAINS!"

Trembling, the assistant half-crawled to the window and pulled the draperies together, not daring to look at the severed head. It did not block out the sound of horrified screams and shattering buildings, but it did prevent them from having to view the damage. The doctor scanned the incision, satisfied that the quake did not appear to have done any damage. Misato's fingers were scrabbling across the surface of her bedside table for her cell phone, with no success.

Namika breathed, tried to reassure her. "I'm sure they ejected the entrance plug."

"_Entry _plug. I hope they did."

"I'm sure they did."

But Misato shot her a warning look and Namika refrained from making any other ignorant comments. She was reminded uncomfortably that despite all the years she had worked at NERV, she knew very little about its functions. They simply delivered the injured to her and she was to treat them and return them to work.

"Does anything hurt?"

"Not really."

"No chills? Fever?"

"No."

"Good."

Without warning, the lights flickered back on. Namika saw with relief that everything was functioning well. She nodded to her assistant, and the girl sank into a chair, holding a shaking hand over her eyes. Namika met Misato's eyes and they grinned shakily; under normal circumstances the doctor would have scolded her assistant for such a bad case of nerves, but today's circumstances were certainly not normal. She shook her hands, trying to bring feeling back into her numbed fingers, and reached for the monitoring machines; Misato certainly appeared to be alive and well, but the human eye was imperfect at detecting tiny changes…

Then the door burst open, and the assistant let out a little shriek.

"Dr. Ishiyama!"

Namika burst out, "You're not allowed in here without being fully sterilized! Get out!"

"We need you now," the nurse insisted. She was breathing quickly and unevenly, and there were patches of red in her cheeks visible even in the dim light.

"Stay here," Namika ordered her assistant, and to Misato, "I'll be back soon." She said not a word to the nurse, breaking into a run once she exited Misato's room. There was a dreadful feeling in her stomach that she knew already…

She threw open the door to Shinji's room, where the medical personnel were gathered around the patient but scattered quickly in her presence. Namika strode to the patient and in doing so, noticed the display of flat green lines on the electrically illuminated panels around him.

Flat lines.

_Flat lines…!_

"Shinji," she whispered, taking firm hold by the shoulder and shaking him first gently and then harder, "Shinji!"

Nothing.

She turned him over so that he was lying on his back, pulled back his eyelids, and shone her light into them. She listened desperately for a heartbeat, moving her stethoscope over his chest in rapid, panicked motions. She watched him desperately, praying that she would see his chest rising and falling as he breathed. Around her, the staff stood motionless, heads bowed, waiting for her to conclude what they already knew.

The doctor tossed her hair back and threw a painstaking, stricken stare at the monitor, but was greeted again with flat lines.Nothing had changed.

Forced to accept the bitter truth, Namika backed away slowly from the bed and tripped over the metal contraption that maintained the IV line. One of the nurses reached to help her up, but she slapped away her hand and remained sitting on the cold tiles.

As a doctor, she had learned early on to accept the harsh realities of medicine. But now… this time…

She gripped the cold metal bar of the metal structure beside her and held it tight, feeling the coldness sink into the flesh of her palm. Her arm quivered uncontrollably, and the almost-empty IV bag above her moved in response. She looked up at it with miserable eyes, and suddenly the answer dawned on her.

Yet nobody had ever anticipated that it would be a problem.

Statistics from graduate-school textbooks were hurling themselves at her now, and Namika felt the numbers ricocheting in her mind; less than one in 800,000 deaths were attributable to the use of general anesthesia, and most of those were due to other complications.

_Other complications._

She recalled the symptoms prior to anesthesia-related deaths exactly as they had been written in her college textbook: _medullary paralysis occurs if the respiratory centers of the brain that control breathing and other vital functions cease to function death results if the patient cannot be revived quickly careful control of the amounts of anesthetics and monitoring of the patient's vital signs should prevent this from occurring—_

Careful control of the amounts of anesthetics—they had done that—she had checked and rechecked them. But they had not been able to monitor his vital signs, or somebody would surely have noticed.

_Shinji's death could have been preventable._

_Shinji's death…_

Namika let out a little cry of pure misery. Somebody reached down again to help her; again she slapped them away and instead clutched tightly to the wooden table leg behind her, letting her world fade to blackness as she scrunched her eyes and struggled not to cry.

The last thing she remembered was regretting the fact that she had shouted at her assistant for showing weakness.

* * *

It fell to Rei to dispose of the food they had prepared. She was surely not about to eat it, and Asuka was still hospitalized. Minor injuries, she had been told. The Second would be out of the hospital in a few days.

They had defeated the Angel. Rei did not remember how she had done it. It didn't matter. She vaguely remembered the NERV technicians mentioning that it was a miracle that she had survived the battle at all, much less emerging unscathed. That Asuka had survived with only minor injuries. It didn't matter.

She neared the waiting room slowly, hoping not to see the four plastic containers stacked on the coffee table as they had been that morning. Perhaps they had spoiled in the lack of refrigeration and someone had thrown them out. Perhaps someone had been hungry and eaten them. Perhaps—

But no, they were still there.

She picked them up and made her way woodenly to the nearest restroom. It was a small, private room designed for usage by only one person at a time; there were no stalls, and for that Rei was grateful. She entered and closed the door behind her. Rei opened her arms and the containers fell into the sink with a clatter. A ceramic, white sink unlike the metal sink at home where she and Asuka had prepared the meal.

Rei peeled back the plastic lid of the first container and poured the potatoes into the toilet, then watched them disappear as she depressed the flush lever. Next came the rice. By the time she removed the lid of the asparagus, her eyes were filled with tears and her hands shaking such that she missed the toilet bowl completely and the vegetables scattered across the floor.

She cleaned it up without focusing on the task, and tossed the container of apple turnovers into the trash can without opening it.

Rei grasped the edge of the sink with her white hands, still trembling. The yellow light cast a dim glow on her blue hair, and in the mirror she saw her red eyes teeming with tears. She blinked, allowing a single tear to escape and make its way down her cheek.

She tore a paper towel from the rack and held it to her closed eyes, allowing the soft paper to soak up the moisture that leaked from beneath her eyelids. In the midst of her grief Rei mused ironically that a few weeks ago she would have been shocked with her behavior today. The First could not remember crying; she could count on one hand the number of times in which she had shown true emotion—but today it did not matter.

It did not matter at all.

* * *

"Hey."

"Hey." Misato lowered the newspaper and giggled girlishly. "I see you brought me flowers."

"Yeah, but they're plastic. I remembered you liked hyacinths."

Misato smiled. The strain of her illness had etched deep lines into her face, but she was smiling again. She held the newspaper out for him to see the headline. "The last angel did some pretty bad damage, huh?"

Kaji's mouth formed a thin line. "Probably one of the worst. A lot of reconstruction's going to follow this one."

"I see." Anxious to change the subject, she chided, "Hey, how'd you get them to let you in here? I thought you had to be medical staff."

"I have excellent persuading skills," Kaji informed her. "Besides, do you know how much scrubbing they made me go through? Surely you don't think I'm wearing this blue gown for _fun_." He picked morosely at it.

Misato laughed weakly and coughed. Kaji waited for it to pass, then asked, "So how did you convince them to give you a newspaper?"

"Ritsuko said it was sterilized. Some sort of new radiation process."

"I see."

Misato pursed her lips. " 'I see' again? Nothing else to say? Hey," she pressed, her voice becoming serious again, "I haven't talked to Shinji since the day of the transplant. How's he doing?"

"Fine…just fine."

Misato closed her eyes. "I'm glad…"

Kaji watched her apprehensively for any signs of suspicion. There were none—she had believed him. The doctors had jointly decided that it would not be a good idea to inform her of Shinji's death while her own life was in such jeopardy, but it was a secret that could not be kept forever. He lowered his head and looked away, reliving memories that he would rather have not occurred at all.

Two days after the foiled transplant that ended his life, Shinji Ikari was laid to rest beside his mother. Almost all of Shinji's class had attended the simple funeral, led by Hikari, whose face was streaked with tears as she slowly made her way toward him. Rei was there as well, standing a short distance off from her classmates. She did not cry, but the pain in her red eyes remained a fresh image in Kaji's mind; beside her had been Kensuke, pushing the wheelchair of his best friend. Touji had gestured impatiently for him to stop a short distance from Shinji's casket. Bit by bit, he inched over to Shinji's side on his new prosthetics—the first steps he had taken since the day his Eva had been forcibly crushed. Ritsuko stood alone uncomfortably for a good part of the ceremony, but was later joined by Maya, who sobbed quietly through the rest. Asuka had refused to attend, choosing instead to grieve alone.

Also absent was the doctor who had coordinated the entire transplant. Namika Ishiyama had been promptly fired by The Commander himself on March 27. The actual circumstances were rather sketchy; all they knew was that she had disappeared after leaving behind three lengthy notes—one to her assistant, one to Ritsuko, and one to Misato. Neither Ritsuko nor her assistant had shown their messages to Kaji, and the third was being kept for Misato's eyes only. The Major did not know why her doctor and old college friend had not come to see her for four days; she had simply been told that Dr. Ishiyama was unavailable and was sending her best wishes.

Now the medical team's foremost focus was on NERV's own Major Katsuragi's recovery. Although exhausted and weak from the chemotherapy and multitude of drugs she was being given to prevent rejection and suppress infection, she claimed to be feeling better; looking at her today, Kaji would have had to agree. Nevertheless, there were still no fruits, vegetables, or flowers allowed in her room, and the hospital continued to maintain very stringent policies on who could and couldn't enter her room. He had heard through the NERV grapevine that both Ritsuko and Rei had visited; both had been told not to disclose any "excess information"—the code words for Shinji's death. For now, she accepted without question the fact that Shinji, like herself, was recovering and would not be able to visit her for some days.

"I'm so tired," Misato muttered, her eyes still closed.

Kaji sat with her until she was asleep again, smoothing aside the tendrils of red hair that framed her face. He couldn't wait until her own dark hair was long again. He'd ask her never to cut it again.

* * *

Asuka watched the man she had once loved pass through the tiny window in her closed door. He didn't look at her, as he didn't know which room she was in. Her fingers tightened around the SDAT until she forcefully pried them away, afraid that she would break the mechanism.

He'd asked her to hold on to it for him until he was out of the hospital.

She had considered giving it to Kaji to bury with him, but decided instead in an act of selfishness to keep it.

The sweet soprano of the girl's voice filled her ears.

She hadn't gone to his funeral. She didn't have anything to say to him or to anyone. Maybe later. Maybe sometime in the future. The far-off future.

She wondered briefly what had happened to the food she and Rei had prepared. She recalled without emotion that night that they had sat in Rei's apartment and shared dinner on her bed. She recalled the feeling of crisp crust on her fingertips, of smooth ceramic plates balanced in her lap, of tender asparagus spears giving way under her fork.

She listened as the tape came to an end.

* * *

They waited, each day hurrying to the hospital to mark her daily white blood cell count—cheering when it went up, consoling one another when it went down. Then, finally, there came a happy day in late April when the flowers were blooming, her cell count had maintained itself for some time above 1000, and Misato was officially discharged from the hospital.

She had been permitted out of her room a few times in the last week, usually for only a short walk down the hallway, but today she was going home. Home today meant not the usual disheveled Katsuragi apartment, but Kaji's house instead, where she would stay for an undetermined amount of time. Ritsuko and Maya had been over and hand-scrubbed the entire house over, then proceeded to throw out all the beer they could find. She was looking forward to seeing his serene watermelon patches again, away from the traffic and congestion of the urban Tokyo-3.

They had bought her a new outfit for this occasion, a simple sleeveless cotton dress with a matching hairtie. A nurse helped her to fasten back the red curls of her wig with it, but she slipped into the dress herself. It was nice to wear something other than a hospital gown for once, and she planned to dump the wig before long, too—already Kaji had discovered fresh hair sprouting anew from her head.

"You look lovely," the nurse told her.

"Thank you," Misato replied.

She left her bedroom with a cheery wave, pleased to be rid of it—she brought nothing out of it except for her cell phone (the lamp had been carefully packaged and taken home already by Ritsuko). The nurse waved to her and turned back to stripping the sheets and laying on new ones for the next patient. Misato felt a twinge of pity for whomever would be staying there next, but let that feeling dissipate as she half-walked, half-ran to the elevators.

They were waiting for her when she came out of the lobby; Kaji was carrying real flowers, and Ritsuko hurried forward to take pictures of her. Rei waited off to the side, carrying a large bouquet of colored balloons. Misato came down the stairs into the warm sunlight smiling, laughing, and finally crying as she landed in Kaji's arms.

"Welcome back," he whispered. Misato took the flowers from him and inhaled their soft scent. She hugged Rei, who handed her the balloons without speaking, and thanked her for everything.

"And you, Ritsuko," she added.

The blonde doctor smiled and looped an arm over her shoulders. They needed no words to express their relief.

"Ritsuko's brought over all the medication you'll need—_and_ she cleaned out my house from top to bottom, so we're all ready for you," Kaji informed her.

"I want a watermelon," Misato demanded.

"It's too early for watermelons. You can have a watermelon flower instead."

"But no beer," Ritsuko cautioned.

All three of them escorted Misato to Kaji's car, where she slid into the passenger seat and fastened her seat belt, then let her balloons float free in the backseat.

"You realize that I won't be able to look in the rearview mirror if you do that," Kaji warned. He turned the keys in the ignition. "But then again, you've never used yours, and you always lived to tell the tale."

"I use it," she protested.

"Not the way it's intended to be used," he countered. They backed out of the parking lot, waving and calling to Rei and Ritsuko. "The rearview mirror was not intended so that one could apply makeup and keep the occupants of the backseat from fighting."

"Very true. All right, all right, I concede," she acknowledged with a knowing smile.

Kaji wove his car in and out of traffic while Misato was content with simply admiring the scenery of Tokyo-3 after having seen nothing but the small garden outside her hospital room for months. She touched her hand to her neck, finding first the cross, then the rose. The glass rose he'd given her. The same one he'd given to another girl.

"Hey," she said quietly, breaking the silence, "how's Asuka doing?"

"She's staying at your apartment for now. It was decided that I could probably do a better job of taking care of you than she could."

"I see."

Kaji attempted a joke. "It was all actually because Ritsuko decided it would take too long to sterilize your apartment after you've been letting all that mold and fungus grow for years."

She slapped him lightly.

He pulled up into his driveway.

"We're home."

* * *

Author's note: I hope you didn't see that coming, although there was a very subtle hint in the last chapter, perhaps a bit too subtle (I seem to have a habit of making my hints too hard). This was the original ending I came up with when I first planned this story over a year ago, and it's perhaps the only thing that hasn't evolved as the story developed.

Just a short epilogue to follow…


	8. aftermath

"Shinji."

The name left her dead lips as a whisper.

The shiny wrapping paper crackled in her hands as she sank to her knees, feeling the warmth of the packed soil seep through the thin fabric of her skirt. Her shadow covered a good part of his tombstone, and she quickly moved a few inches aside. He'd spent enough time in darkness while he was alive. Misato leaned forward just enough to place the bouquet of day lilies at the head of the grave.

There was too much to say and she didn't know how to say any of it. Her thoughts drifted to Asuka.

_I don't hate you, __Misato__... but please, just understand that it's too hard for me to see you right now._

And Misato had responded brokenly, "I understand."

No, she didn't really understand, now that she thought about it. There was so much that she didn't understand. Why she, of all people, had been the only one to survive the Katsuragi expedition. Why the fate of mankind lay in the hands of a group of fourteen-year-olds. Why Shinji had to die so that she could live.

The remaining doctors at NERV, though not nearly as skilled as Namika, had given her an excellent prognosis. Her cell count had reached safe levels and had remained for several months now. The effects of chemotherapy were wearing off; her deep purple hair was slowly regenerating, and beer tasted like beer again (at least the few sips that she had been permitted did). There had been several beautiful nights in which Misato and Kaji sat in his backyard on old logs and ate freshly sliced watermelon without a thought about cancer and death.

Kaji had asked her to marry him and she had said yes without hesitation. Though they were now legally man and wife, the wedding ceremony had been postponed indefinitely. Perhaps they would never have one; nevertheless, now was certainly not the time.

As for Namika, no one knew where she was or what had happened to her. Misato pictured her as a Shinto nun in the mountains. She smiled humorlessly to herself.

Her gaze traveled slowly to the marker beside Shinji's, the one that bore the name Yui Ikari. His mother. It occurred to her that over the last year she had come to think of herself as a sort of motherly figure to him.

_I failed, _she thought, a grim aura caressing her features. _I failed to protect him. I didn't really have any right to think of myself as his mother_.

"Sorry," she whispered to the boy and his mother.

How long had it been since his funeral now? Misato counted the months. She'd been discharged in April. It was now mid-August, a blistering Tokyo-3 August where the rays of the sun beat down mercilessly on the city's inhabitants. He was buried at the end of March.

Four months.

Misato suddenly felt very old, so old that her body could no longer bear her weight. She fell forwards onto the parched soil, her head clashing with the bouquet of lilies. The paper crinkled under the weight and a stem broke.

"_Why?_"

She relived the events of the year, beginning with the initial onset of symptoms in the summer heat. She remembered the crushing shock of being told of her diagnosis, the brutal onslaught of chemotherapy drugs, the low days when she had almost lost the will to live. She remembered learning that Shinji had the power to save her life. And she remembered, painfully clearly, that he had died trying to achieve that very goal.

She regretted the times she'd yelled at him. She regretted not protecting him against the exploits of The Commander.

_The Commander…_ her thoughts shifted direction. Kaji had mentioned that he had not attended his own son's funeral. Misato thought back to the time that Shinji had been so preoccupied about visiting his mother's grave with his father. She imagined his father visiting alone with two bouquets of flowers, one for each grave.

She reached up to touch the smooth granite surface of the tombstone. Her sensitive fingertips found the numbers that recorded Shinji's date of birth and date of death. There was a tiny overlap between his date of birth and his mother's date of death. That, she thought sadly, must have been the happiest year of his life.

Had he been happy living with her, overshadowed by Asuka, challenged by Touji, pressured by Kensuke? Would it have been better if he had stayed with his teacher away from Tokyo-3—if he had never learned to pilot an Eva and been sent repeatedly into battle?

She hoped he had been happy, at least for a little while.

It took Misato some time to gather the energy and mental strength to lift herself up again. She felt awkward upon leaving, as if she ought to say something… but there was nothing to say. She settled for a nod and a wistful smile before heading towards the parking lot.

* * *

"You didn't have to come with me, you know. I wouldn't have made you."

She glared at his tombstone with defiance, squeezing the branch tightly in her hands. She'd torn it roughly off of the tree earlier and consequently hadn't made a clean break; there were splinters of wood and bark sticking out in every direction.

"I'm staying at Misato's now," she told him, her voice calming now, "but that's only temporary. I'm going back to Berlin as soon as possible, so…"

Her voice quavered, and she had to stop to regain control.

"…so I won't be seeing you again."

She threw her head back and sniffled hard before continuing. "Maybe I'll go back to school and get another degree. I think I'd like to study engineering. Or maybe chemistry."

A bird twittered overhead.

Her hair was growing, reaching almost her shoulders now in tousled locks. She drew them into a scattered ponytail with one hand, then let go again. "I wish you were still here to look after Misato. But there's Kaji to do that now—they're getting married, did you know that? After all that bickering, Kaji-kun is getting married. And I won't be here for the wedding.

"I'll be okay on my own in Germany. Hikari's promised to visit me once she finishes school."

She paused, realizing that she was talking more to herself than him. _Him_. In that moment, his silence reminded her of the First Child, whom she had not seen nor spoken to in weeks. She had spoken to no one in weeks.

"I came out of that mold-coated apartment just to speak to you, baka. I hope you feel special."

Silence.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out the SDAT. The tape was at its end, and she listened to its whirring mechanisms while it rewound. When it clicked to a stop, she gently depressed the play button, and listened to the soft tones of her favorite song.

_Du weißt, ich werde immer ehrlich zu dir sein_

_Und du weißt, ich bin derjenige_

_An den du dich wenden kannst_

_Jederzeit, überall und irgendwo_

_Du weißt, ich werde immer da sein

* * *

_

Author's Note: I'd like to thank all of you who took the time to read this story, especially those of you who left me so many wonderful reviews—thank you for all of your encouragement and constructive criticism. I apologize again for the lateness of the last three chapters, and I'd especially like to thank joedoebell for reminding me that it desperately needed updating!

I'm not planning to write again for some time. For awhile I had a plan to write a funny fic which would center on Gendo and the "real" reasons why he so deeply disliked his son—he was to be jealous that Shinji got the chance to pilot and he didn't, something along those lines, but the plot (was there ever one?) hasn't developed at all. Perhaps sometime in the future.

It's now 12:23 AM – so I'll leave it here; goodnight, and thank you again!


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